


Dear Cupid, Next Time Hit Us Both

by owleyes_n_moles



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baekhyun - Freeform, Band Fic, Best Friends, Bullying, ChanSoo - Freeform, Chanyeol - Freeform, Childhood Friends, College, Drug Addiction, Drugs, EXO - Freeform, F/M, Friendship, Growing Up Together, Homophobia, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jongdae - Freeform, Kyungsoo - Freeform, Luhan - Freeform, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Takoyaki Fest, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?, kpop, self-destructive behaviour, the f word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 21:50:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12219627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owleyes_n_moles/pseuds/owleyes_n_moles
Summary: Kyungsoo and Chanyeol are best friends. Kyungsoo falls for his best friend; cliché, yes, but that doesn't mean that Chanyeol returns the feelings. This is the story of Kyungsoo's one sided unfulfilled love. Or maybe it isn't.For prompt No.11 Round 2





	Dear Cupid, Next Time Hit Us Both

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: This story is purely the work of fiction. This work of fiction doesn’t wish to promote or encourage the use of drugs and alcohol or romanticise self harm in any form. The expression of homophobia in the story is purely for the sake of fiction and does not represent the views and opinions of the author regarding the same. I repeat, all that is written is purely for the sake of fiction and nothing more. Peace and stay safe y’all.  
> **  
>  **Warnings: non-explicit smut, drugs, drug addiction, alcohol, self-destructive behaviour, thoughts of self harm, homophobia, language, use of the 'f' word  
> **  
>  Notes: This fic happened because N decided to 'attac' me with Chansoo videos three years back and I haven’t been the same ever since.  
> Also, a big thank you to K. Your smiles are special and your laughter even more so. I’m too shy to say it to your face, but you make me wanna be better.
> 
> Lastly, dear prompter, this fic was supposed to be 8k long and thoroughly sticking to the prompt. Unfortunately, somewhere between 2k and 3k I got on top of my high horse and rode away with the prompt. I hope you don’t hate it. That’s all I’m asking.

Kyungsoo liked doing the dishes. He liked the way the foam would stick to his hands like little clouds and then the warm water would wash it all away. He liked how the pots shined after he was done with them. While doing the dishes, mostly he hummed to himself and at times he let himself be lost in thought, replaying the events of the day or maybe reminiscing a fond memory.

That night he was humming a familiar tune to himself. He didn’t quite realise what song it was, yet. He just kept humming his favourite part on loop.

Unbidden, came the flash of memories; a late night jamming session, long limbs and a velvety deep voice. It was hazy memory that revolved around an impromptu jamming session with his best friend and his guitar, both of them drunk to the point of feeling a very content buzz. He remembered Chanyeol's song. The song that Chanyeol had written for him.

 

And with it came an onslaught of memories

 

**

 

A couple of decades back, when Kyungsoo was still a child and had to attend school, his parents had transferred him to another new school with the hope that he wouldn't have to deal with bullying anymore. His big eyes and quiet nature made him a target and he just refused to go to school even if they promised that they had talked to his teacher and the bullying would stop. He was a stubborn kid of sorts and once he had made up his mind there wasn’t much that could be done about it. So they transferred him to a new place and hoped that history would not repeat itself. On the first day, he introduced himself when the teachers urged him, but without much vigour. He wasn't keen on making new friends. What were friends anyway? They'd only end up making fun of him and laughing at him.

Eyes downcast, he made his way to the last empty desk in the classroom, only to find a leg thrown over the chair. Kyungsoo was expecting hostility; he had come prepared for it. But it was a little too early and unexpected.

Refusing to meet the eyes of his tormentor, he continued to stand there.

"You need to pay a fee to use this chair," said a surprisingly lively voice. Was his tormentor poking fun at him already?

"I don't have money." Kyungsoo really didn't have money. Otherwise he would have emptied his pockets of those paper notes as soon as he was asked. He just wanted to be left alone.

"Who said I want money?"

Kyungsoo felt himself getting angry when he heard a chuckle. He was being laughed at too, and he hadn't even begun his day.

"The fee for using this chair is being my friend."

Kyungsoo's eyes flicked to his tormentor's. He wondered what new game this was supposed to be.

"Be my friend. We can have fun together."

Kyungsoo was skeptical. How could he not be? He hadn't had the best experiences with friends before.

His tormentor stuck out his hand. "Friends?"

 

What choice did Kyungsoo have? He really needed that seat.

 

**

 

It wasn't easy to coax Kyungsoo out of his shell. He was like a tortoise, who felt like he was cornered by an alligator and had thus receded so far back into his shell, that Chanyeol needed a telescope to be able to see him. At least that was what Chanyeol told him one week later when he had been shot down yet again when he had offered to have lunch with him.

Kyungsoo didn't know what to say to that. Was that an insult? Even if it was, what was Kyungsoo going to do about it? Nothing. So he just dipped his head and stared at the table. The wood had swirly patterns on it that he hadn't noticed before.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Chanyeol slammed his hand on Kyungsoo's table, making him feel the vibrations in his feet where they rested on the metal legs of the table.

"Kyungsoo, you need to look at people in the eye so that they don't think you're weak." Kyungsoo looked up so quickly that he almost gave himself whiplash.

"Woah! Your eyes are so big!" Chanyeol exclaimed, grinning like he was witnessing something great. "They're almost as big as tennis balls!"

Kyungsoo felt offended. Tennis balls? Maybe Chanyeol was like the other kids. Maybe he was just pretending to be nice to Kyungsoo so that he could make fun of him.

"Hey, I didn't mean it that way," Chanyeol backtracked when he sensed something wrong. "I wasn't saying it in a bad way. I mean it like, that's so cool! No one else has eyes as cool as yours."

Kyungsoo peeked at him from underneath his brows, his head still bent. "You think my eyes are cool?"

"Yes! Of course! I have never seen anyone with eyes as big as yours. That definitely makes you cool. You have something that no one else has!"

"Really?"

"Yes! And next time those kids bully you just look at them like you looked at me now. I bet they'll get scared by your eyes."

Chanyeol knew?

"Yes, I know about what the other kids are doing to you. Jongdae saw you getting bullied yesterday. He went to get help but then you were gone when he came back."

Kyungsoo’s ears burned with shame when he realized that Chanyeol had found out. He didn't consider him a friend yet, but it still mattered to him what Chanyeol thought of him. Had Jongdae seen Kyungsoo peeing his pants when the kids poked fun at him?

"Jongdae saw you peeing your pants. You were really scared, huh?” Chanyeol seemed to have no filter. He had no tact when it came to talking. He said it all, while being completely oblivious to Kyungsoo’s mortification.

“It's okay, Kyungsoo. Everyone pees their pants. In fact, I peed my pants last night. In bed. It's nothing to be ashamed of." Chanyeol was smiling at him, nodding his head vigorously, as if that would convince Kyungsoo. "You know what? Next time just hang out with me during lunch. Then they will leave you alone. I'll protect you! I'll be your Superman!"

With that Chanyeol climbed up on a chair and flexed his arms in a show of strength. Unfortunately, he was the clumsiest kid Kyungsoo had ever seen and he ended up falling down and hitting his head.

But it wasn't all for naught.

The smile that Kyungsoo had on his lips as Chanyeol rubbed the rapidly forming bump on his head was the first one Kyungsoo had had in weeks.

 

 

Chanyeol was a mystery to Kyungsoo. He talked to everyone. Everyone was friends with him. He was even popluar among the teachers. The real mystery, however, lay in why he still hung out with Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo never asked and Chanyeol never answered. Instead Chanyeol told him jokes till he laughed, dragged him out to play during lunch break, compared homework with him and called him at night to wish him goodnight before going off to sleep. Chanyeol had incorporated himself into Kyungsoo’s life like a barnacle on a whale and he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. Thanks to Chanyeol, life was starting to look up for the first time in the eight years that Kyungsoo was alive.

Whenever Chanyeol brought lasagne for lunch, he’d save it for Kyungsoo because he knew how much Kyungsoo liked the taste of its cheesy goodness on his tongue. It was like a drug to Kyungsoo and Chanyeol always laughed his head off as Kyungsoo moaned around every bite.

“You sound like Yura,” Chanyeol told Kyungsoo one day when Kyungsoo was moaning around a forkful of lasagne. Again.

“What makes me sound like your sister? I don’t have a girly voice.” Kyungsoo scowled at Chanyeol, before digging back into the god sent gift of cheese and chicken.

“No. you don’t sound like her when you talk. But you sound the same when you make that mhmmm sound when you’re eating,” Chanyeol tried to imitate Kyungsoo’s moan but only sounded like he was having a hard time in the toilet.

Kyungsoo laughed at him and told him so and Chanyeol stuck his tongue out at him. When Kyungsoo was done laughing, he said “you mean like this?” and he moaned again around another forkful of lasagne.

“Yeah. Just like that. Whenever Yura has a boy over in her room when mum and dad are out she makes the same noise.”

“Do you think she’s eating something she likes?” Kyungsoo asked, full of innocence.

“Maybe? I mean, she doesn’t let me in her room when I knock and she screams at me to go away. And we both know how good my nose is. Maybe she is scared that I’ll smell the food she has in there.”

Kyungsoo nodded his head in agreement. Oh boy, weren’t they innocent little fellas.

They realised what those moaning sounds were and how unrelated they were to food much later. They had a good laugh about it after Chanyeol was done being embarrassed and mortified about the fact that he had pestered his sister to “give him some too.” It was a joke that never grew old, Chanyeol flushing with embarrassment every time it was brought up.

 

**

 

As time passed, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, a family of two, got two new members. Kyungsoo didn't know how he fit in between a loud Chanyeol, a whiny Jongdae and an annoying Baekhyun. He remembered the day he met Chanyeol, but he didn't remember when he first started hanging out with Jongdae or when Baekhyun joined their group. One day they didn't know each other and the next they were the best of friends. However, there was one common denominator- Chanyeol- he was the glue that held them all together.

"Come over," Chanyeol said, in the beginning, but a few months later, they didn't need to be told. Their feet moved of their own accord. The four of them walked to Chanyeol's house, goofing along the way, trading insults and piggy back rides. Soon Chanyeol’s house was like their own. Chanyeol didn't have boundaries. He didn't have any restrictions. They could touch what they wanted and take what they wanted. Chanyeol never said no, if they asked. So after a while they stopped asking and treated his things like their own.

"When did you get this one?" Jongdae was holding up a Wonder Woman figurine. He eyes were wide and his voice was lined with something akin to desire.

"Take it if you want it," Chanyeol waved his hand dismissively, more interested in tuning his guitar.

"Hey, I want that!" Baekhyun had just entered the bedroom with a glass of juice that he had helped himself to and now his eyes were set on the action figure too.

"No, you took the Superman one last time! This one is mine!" Jongdae whined, tucking the figure under his armpit so that Baekhyun would get grossed out and refuse to touch it. But Jongdae didn't know that Wonder Woman had an appeal that made even Baekhyun forget all about armpit sweat.

Kyungsoo watched the two boys pull and push at each other, hissing and whining, from his perch on the bed. His homework was coming along well so far, though he much preferred it when Jongdae and Baekhyun got physical (instead of verbal) with each other. That way he did have to listen to their annoying voices. Also, Chanyeol was strumming his guitar now and Kyungsoo quite liked being able to hear it without his friends screaming.

"Should we break them up?" He voiced his concern a few minutes later, when he had managed to finish his exercise but Baekhyun and Jongdae were still on the floor, teeth digging into each other's arms.

"Do you want to take the risk?" Chanyeol was clearing saying no. Jongdae was making angry kitten noises now and Baekhyun was barking back at him.

"No, I guess not." Kyungsoo didn't know how he became friends with them, but he made a mental note to consider finding new friends.

But he could never leave Chanyeol. Not in a million lifetimes. So, unfortunately, he was stuck with them.

 

 

While Kyungsoo loved anything cheesy, Chanyeol had a love affair going on with sausages. His day brightened up considerably if anyone gave him even one teensy bite of a sausage. Yes, the boys had grown up quite a bit to resort to sausage jokes and use every opportunity they could to tease Chanyeol about it, but that didn’t mean that he had to give them up. Luckily for him, Kyungsoo was willing to go out of his way to pack his lunch box with sausages at least once a week for Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths for anyone else, but he did for Chanyeol. Because he was special.

 

**

 

One winter, Chanyeol had some news for them which had him all excited and giddy.

"My parents bought the empty plot next door. They are planning on converting it into a garden and putting in a swimming pool." He was smiling so wide, that Kyungsoo could count all his teeth from 20 feet away.

"Say what?" Baekhyun was up and bouncing in a nanosecond, his excitement adding to Chanyeol's upon hearing the news.

"We're gonna get a pool! I'm so excited!"

This exclamation of joy was accompanied by a little jumping dance that Jongdae joined in as soon as he walked into the room.

"Why are we celebrating?" He asked, when the excitement had died down. Trust Jongdae to celebrate something without knowing what it was about.

"Chanyeol's getting a pool!" Baekhyun shrill voice sometimes made Kyungsoo wonder whether it would be a good idea to send him to live with the dolphins. But that thought was cut out when another round of screeching and jumping commenced to celebrate the news.

Kyungsoo had to get some new friends before he lost his hearing for good.

 

 

Winters consisted of movie nights at Baekhyun's place that were more to Kyungsoo's liking than he was willing to admit out loud. They were probably the only days of the week when Kyungsoo didn't think about finding himself new friends. (Not that he would abandon them in the first place. He just liked to think that he was mean enough to do it.)

Movie nights were spent in the warm living room, which would be temporarily converted into a sty for the three pigs who had no inkling for cleanliness whatsoever. Kyungsoo didn't consider himself a pig because he definitely cleaner than them. Chanyeol and Jongdae dragged their sleeping bags into the room, placing them in the space between the couches, tea table moved to the corner of the room. Baekhyun carried his mattress down, with Kyungsoo's and Jongdae's help and squeezed it in between the sleeping bags. He liked being in between, mumbling some nonsense about feeling cold when he didn't get enough body heat. Kyungsoo, like the clean boy he was, took residence on the couch. He knew from experience that the floor would soon be littered with chips, empty bags of said chips, empty cans of cola, and candy wrappers. He also knew from experience how the three would just roll over and sleep in the mess when the movies were over.

It was gross. So he decided to be the cleaner man and avoid the sty. The big bad wolf was never meant to be chummy with three little pigs anyway. (Yes, Kyungsoo was delusional. He liked thinking he was the big bad wolf.)

But sitting by himself on his high couch wasn't as fun as he wished it to be. He liked being able to focus on the movie and getting engrossed in the storyline line without anyone to disturb him but sometimes he saw things out of the corner of his eye which made him want to get off his high couch and dive into the sty. When he saw Baekhyun giggling with Jongdae during a kiss scene or Chanyeol patting Baekhyun's head when he cried, Kyungsoo wished that he wasn't so cold even with a blanket surrounding him.

The thing with being friends with people who are as touchy-feely as Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongdae is that no one would be left alone to feel cold for too long. (Even if he was as big and bad a wolf as Kyungsoo claimed himself to be.) So one night when they were watching 'My Sister's Keeper' and Kyungsoo couldn't stop his eyes from pricking or his nose from feeling stuffy, he found himself feeling warmer than he had in months. He registered the dipping of the couch cushions somewhere at the back of his mind and he even noticed the arms wrapping around him through his haze of grief for the poor girl who he just knew was going to die even after all that. But he truly realized that he was in the middle of an ugly, snotty cuddle fest when Baekhyun wiped his snot on Kyungsoo's collar and Jongdae discarded a snot filled tissue in his lap.

It was gross. It was the grossest thing ever. Kyungsoo would have screamed and flipped out any other time. But not this time. This time he was warm. Warmer than he had felt in months. So he let them be, and even hugged them back a little.

This was also the first time when he didn't think about finding new friends. The big bad wolf had fallen for the pigs.

 

Besides movie nights, the other fond memories that Kyungsoo had were of sleepovers at Jongade’s place. Jongdae’s room had four bunk beds, three of which belonged to his elder brothers who were away at college, the last one having left at the beginning of that school year. This gave the four of them the room all to themselves, not to mention the super cool bunk beds, a pair each on opposite sides of the room. It was exciting, to be honest, and Kyungsoo loved whispering in the dark after Jondgae’s mother forced them to climb into bed and turned the lights off. Sometimes they would all try to squeeze into one bed and take turns whispering scary stories with a torch held to their face. Baekhyun was always the first to start whimpering and he would bury his face into whichever body part was closest. One time he hid his face in Kyungsoo’s tummy and another time in Jongdae’s armpit. Kyungsoo was beginning to see a pattern here in regards to Baekhyun and Jongade’s armpit. Was it a fetish perhaps?

One night Jongdae came up with some a game he liked to call “War Zone.” Kyungsoo didn’t quite understand the rules when Jongade first explained it but he was hoping to understand how it worked once they started playing it.

Jongade had just suggested that they come up with names for their “zones” which were actually just their beds, when his mother came in and ushered them all into bed and turned off the lights.

“So have you decided what to call your zones?” Jongdae whispered to them in the dark from across the room.

“I’m calling mine Rilakkuma,” Chanyeol whispered back from the bed above Kyungsoo’s.

“Mine will be Houston,” Kyungsoo stated.

“Can’t you come up with something better than Houston, Soo? Thsts so unimaginative and boring!” Baekhyun complained from his upper bunk on the opposite side of the room.

“It’s still better than Rilakumma.”

“Hey!” Chanyeol hissed back, offended.

“But still, Houston is lame.”

“What are you going to name your zone then? Let’s see how imaginative you can get,” Kyungsoo challenged Baekhyun.

“I’m going to call my zone ‘Suho’s Unwashed Underwear.’ Cool or what?”

“I’m going to go with or what.”

“Shut up Chanyeol. No one asked you.”

Jongdae cackled softly, trying to stifle the noise with his palms on his mouth.

“But who is Suho though?”

“What is more important is why his underwear is unwashed.”

“Kyungsoo must you always care about dirty laundry all the time?”

“I swear to god, I’m going to shove you into a washing machine along with Suho’s unwashed underwear.”

“Be careful to leave the colours out. Or else the tight whities may get stained.”

“Why does Suho’s underwear have to be white?”

“I don’t know who this Suho is, but I bet he likes keeping his balls warm in a pair of white panties.”

“What the fuck are you guys going on about?”

There was the sound of footsteps in the corridor and Jongdae suddenly realised that they had been talking loudly enough for his to mother to come and reprimand them so he frantically started whispering, “Abort mission. Abort Mission.”

“What?”

“Zone Rilakumma, Houston, Suho’s Unwashed Underwear, Abort mission. Maintain silence.”

“But why?” Baekhyun was still being loud without a clue.

By then Kyungsoo and Chanyeol had seen Jongdae holding finger to his lips in the dark and had grasped the situation.

“Shut up!”

“You shut up Soo!”

“Abort mission! Abort mission!”

“Shut up Baekhyun.”

“No you shut up Chanyeol!”

“Baek can you keep quiet for once?”

“Fuck you, I’m not the one being loud here!”

“Abort! Abort!”

“Boys?”

The four boys dived under their covers right as the door opened to reveal the light from the hallway. Each of them held their breath for a full tense minute before Jongdae’s mother decided to leave.

“What say Houston? Would you like to receive a top secret package from Suho’s Unwashed Underwear?”

That broke the tension and they all burst into a fit of giggles.

Rest assured, after that day, they named quite a few important events after Suho’s dirty laundry; even if they didn’t know who this Suho was.

 

Even though the four of them were as close as peas in a pod, Chanyeol was Kyungsoo’s closest and ‘bestestest’ friend. Chanyeol understood him like no one else and was always only one step away. He was the reason that Kyungsoo had a boost of confidence. Kyungsoo didn’t shy away from looking people in the eye anymore. He didn’t let people intimidate him. He glared back at them just like Chanyeol had taught him to. Chanyeol also made him laugh more often. He did tell some really dumb jokes at times but Kyungsoo mostly found them funny. They didn’t even keep any secrets from each other. Chnayeol always told Kyungsoo everything and that made Kyungsoo feel special. He liked that feeling a lot.

 

That Christmas Chanyeol’s house had a visitor that Kyungsoo had never seen outside of photographs: Chanyeol’s elder brother who was a year older than Yura. He was down for vacations and Kyungsoo was quite excited to see him.

He liked Chanyeol’s family. Everyone was so warm and welcoming all the time. They always smiled, always welcomed Kyungsoo with open arms. They had family pictures framed in the hallway, they had family nights where they all went out together. They often invited the boys to accompany them and it always was a blast. They even planned trips to Disneyworld for all of them and Kyungsoo didn’t think that anyone’s parents could have been cooler than Chanyeol’s. They were picture perfect. Kind of like a poster family.

So, it was kind of odd when Kyungsoo noticed that this brother was only present in the huge family photos. There were no individual photos of him in the house. He was also never brought up during conversations.

When Kyungsoo asked Chanyeol about this, he tried to evade the question at first. “He’s shy,” he said. “He doesn’t like taking pictures.”

“Okay, but then why don’t you guys ever talk about him?”

“There’s never any reason to.”

“But Jongade always tells us about his brothers and Baekhyun can never shut up about how cool Baekbeom is. So it’s just kinda weird that you never talk about your brother.” Kyungsoo didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but he did. That might have pissed Chanyeol off and he ended up snapping at Kyungsoo.

“Just let it go, okay?”

Chanyeol stormed off leaving Kyungsoo only with more questions and a sense of guilt.

“Do you really want to know why?”

Kyungsoo’s head whipped in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. In the past five days, he had seen the Chanyeol’s brother all of two times and he had only heard him greet him with a soft “hi” the first time.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to….” Kyungsoo wasn’t really sure what he wanted to apologise for.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I’m actually glad that someone cares enough to ask about me.”

“I’m really sorry,” Kyungsoo apologised again. He felt bad and he wanted to apologise till he felt better.

“Oh cut that crap. I don’t need you apologising for anything.” Ruyeol waved his hand in the air and gave Kyungsoo a small smile.

“Do you want to come up to my room and share some cake with me?”

Kyungsoo smiled back at him and nodded. Who was he to say no to cake?

Once Kyungsoo had taken a tour of the sparse room and had settled down on a bean bag with some cake, he apologised again.

Ruyeol just waved him off with a smile. “So what did you want to know? You can ask me anything.”

Kyungsoo could see the family resembalance in the smile, the laid back attitude, the ease with which he was talking to someone who was practically a stranger. Yet, Chanyeol’s brother seemed like the stranger in the room. He was unfamiliar with his surroundings, out of his element. Kyungsoo could tell.

“Why are you never around?” he blurted out without much tact or consideration. When he realised what he had done, Kyungsoo slapped a hand over his lips and squeaked.

Ruyeol laughed at him and called him cute. “I go to a boarding school,” he said, answering Kyungsoo’s question. “My parents thought it would be best for me if I went somewhere where I could put a rest to my ‘teenage rebellion’” he made quotation marks in the air, “and work my way back to being a normal person.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ruyeol let out a bark of laughter. “That’s exactly what I asked them.”

“But what did you do for them to send you away to boarding school?”

Ruyeol lost the mirth in his eyes from earlier and they softened. “I fell in love,” he whispered, as if too scared to admit it out loud.

“But why would they send you to boarding school for something like that?”

“Because they didn’t like whom I fell in love with.” Ruyeol had a faraway look in his eyes like he was remembering something long forgotten.

“That’s awful. But why would they not like her?”

Ruyeol turned to look at Kyungsoo with a serene smile on his face. “It wasn’t a ‘her’.”

“Then what was- oh.” Realisation dawned on Kyungsoo right in the middle of his question. He was a kid, but he had grown up quite a bit since the time when he thought that Yura’s moans were related to food. The concept of gay wasn’t something that he quite understood yet, but he remembered being told on several occasions that it was ‘wrong’ and ‘unholy’. He wondered why it was okay for a man to like a woman but wrong for a man to like another man but he wasn't m going to ask his mother that when she was crossing herself and spewing venomous words whenever the ‘gay’ topic came up. They should be neutered, she told him once and another time she told him that they should be treated with electroconvulsive therapy. “Will fix their minds right back after a little current to their heads.” She was a pretty close minded person, in Kyungsoo’s opinion.

“So did you get to see him again?” Kyungsoo asked out of curiosity. He was more curious about whether Ruyeol’s love story had a happily ever after than anything else. The fact that Ruyeol was gay should have bothered him, but it didn’t. If his mother ever found out that he was hanging out with a ‘gay’ boy she would drag him to the priest for sure. Kyungsoo told Ruyeol about it.

Ruyeol chuckled at that. “You are one interesting little buddy. Chanyeol lucked out when he became friends with you, didn’t he?”

Kyungsoo preened under the praise. It wasn't every day that someone other than Chanyeol praised him for something.

As it turns out, Ruyeol didn’t get to see his first crush again, but he had met his first boyfriend in boarding school and they very much liked each other. He wasn’t cross with his parents anymore about throwing him somewhere faraway when they found out that he was gay. He wouldn’t have met his boyfriend otherwise. He did resent them for not letting him come home though. They didn’t like him interacting with Chanyeol because they were scared that he would ‘rub-off’ on him and ‘make him gay too’ but there wasn’t much that he could do about it.

Kyungsoo offered to help him reconnect with Chanyeol but Ruyeol brushed off the offer. He told him that he’d try again when Chanyeol was ready for it. He didn’t want to hide the truth from Chanyeol and he also didn’t want Chanyeol running away from him like his parents did.

Kyungsoo still hadn’t gotten his answer as to why it was wrong for one man to like another, but he knew that an awfully large number of adults that he knew seemed to be repulsed by the idea of it.

The incident blew over and Chanyeol was talking to him the next day like nothing happened and Kyungsoo was willing to let it slide. He wasn’t one for confrontations anyway. New Year’s came around and they were all so busy having so much fun, no one would have thought that Kyungsoo was carrying around a secret. It was the first secret that Kyunsoo had kept from Chanyeol, and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.

**

 

Winter passed in a flash of white and spring was soon blooming its shy petals.

While the four boys liked to coop up in Baekhyun's living room for movie nights in winter, most of spring was spent in Chanyeol's backyard, watching the men lay the pipes and tiles for the pool. The boys were excited to say the least, but not Kyungsoo. He felt a thrum under his skin, but it wasn't excitement. He didn't know how to swim. But that was the lesser half of his worries. What he truly worried about was taking off his shirt.

None of other three boys had any trouble with nudity, having been exposed to plenty of showers with their teammates. They were on the middle school soccer team after all. Kyungsoo was neither in the soccer team, nor very comfortable with exposing any skin that covered the central portion of his body up to his mid thighs. He wasn't a prude....he just had body image....issues. Not that he wanted to talk about it.

So while Baekhyun stripped off his shirt and pants and did crunches in his boxers, in the backyard where everyone could see, and Jongdae did squats to "perk up" his butt, Kyungsoo buried his nose in a book. He tried had to keep his focus on the story but it was hard to keep his eyes from straying. Especially when Chanyeol joined Baekhyun, shirtless of course, in his quest for chocolate abs. Kyungsoo would feign disinterest while secretly peeking at Chanyeol as he got progressively sweatier and, as the weeks passed, more toned. He didn't know what drew him to the view. Aesthetics, Kyungsoo told himself, but he was either naive or lying to himself. Still, Kyungsoo couldn't be blamed for it because he was yet to truly understand the concept of teenage crushes and infatuation.

 

One spring day, a day that was undoubtedly hotter than the last, the boys were sitting in the backyard and admiring the completed swimming pool. It was empty, the main water pipelines were yet to be connected.

"Taeyeon noona is beautiful, isn't she?" Baekhyun offered, out of the blue. His eyes were glazed as if he was lost in a daydream.

"She is four years older, Baek." Jongdae rolled his eyes at Baekhyun and then went back to his game on his Nintendo DS.

"But she is a beauty. Isn't she Chanyeol?" Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol for support, when Jongdae had made it clear that he wasn't going to.

"Yeah, she is. But she's not my type."

Kyungsoo's curiosity was piqued. He wanted to know what Chanyeol’s type was.

"Then what's your type?" Luckily for him, Baekhyun was curious too.

"I like....people...with big eyes...." Chanyeol threw Kyungsoo a brief look and for a second Kyungsoo forgot how to breathe. But the eye contact was broken as quickly as it was made and Chanyeol continued talking while staring at his feet. "And good voices. Someone who can sing."

Kyungsoo could feel his heart hammering in his chest and with each beat it seemed like his heart was getting bigger, pressing on his chest, threatening to burst. He didn't know why he felt that way, but he hoped, he sincerely hoped that Chanyeol was talking about him.

"Someone like Soojung, you know?" Chanyeol looked up at Kyungsoo when he said that Kyungsoo tried very hard to remain stoic and not show how much it affected him.   He held his breath and dug his nails into his palm to distract himself from the crushing feeling in his chest that he was sure was going to suffocate him. He didn't know why he felt that way. Maybe he has asthma, he told himself. Maybe he would have to tell his mother to take him to a doctor.

"Kyungsoo likes Soojung too, don't you Kyungsoo?" Jongdae looked at Kyungsoo expectantly, waiting for him to accept or deny. Kyungsoo honestly didn't know where Jongdae got half his ideas but this one was successful in breaking the spell and diverting Kyungsoo's attention so he went with the flow.

"No, not my type." Kyungsoo hadn't yet figured out his type. "What about you? You were taking Baek's case for crushing on Taeyeon noona but I'm pretty sure you're into noonas too, aren't you?"  Kyungsoo smirked, back to his usual self, putting Jongdae in a tight spot. He knew who Jongdae was crushing on, and Chanyeol would throw a fit if he ever found out.

"Yeah, well Yoora noona is hot. And smart. And sexy. Did I say hot?" Jongdae smiled cheekily at Chanyeol, unabashed about his confession. Trust Jongdae to tell a teenage boy that his elder sister was hot. Kyungsoo, picked up his soda and took a few steps back, ensuring that he was out of the way when Chanyeol finally realized whom Jongdae was referring too.

"You dare look at my sister like that?" Chanyeol could have gotten the role for Tarzan at their school play if he had roared the way he did then. And Kyungsoo was right about moving out of the way. When clumsy Chanyeol lunged at Jongdae, hell broke loose.

 

 

A few weeks later, Spring was leaving, making way for the grand entrance of her hotter sister, Summer. The big bad wolf and the three pigs, as Kyungsoo liked to refer to themselves in his head, were eager for summer. Summer meant ice creams and smoothies. It meant longer days to hang out together after school.

There was one thing though that Kyungsoo wasn't looking forward to: the pool. He still hadn't managed to get over his body image issues and though he had promised to himself that he would get rid of his tummy flab before the time came for him to take off his shirt, he hadn't really gotten around to it. Exercise wasn't really his thing. Also, there were those weird butterfly feelings that he kept getting around Chanyeol. He wasn’t sure if he could handle being with Chnayeol, in a pool. Not to mention the semi nudity and the close proximity that they would be in while being in the state of semi nudity.

So, while the three of them stood there, admiring the ripples in the pool for a few moments before jumping in, Kyungsoo tried to deal with the lead in his pot of his stomach. He wondered whether he should make an excuse about not feeling well and leave. That thought was cut short when the three stripped off their shirts and jumped in the pool, splashing Kyungsoo with water.

"Why are you still standing there Soo?" Chanyeol asked, looking at him in confusion.

"Um, I..."

"Come on in Soo. The water feels so good," Baekhyun tried convincing him as he splashed water on Jongdae.

Kyungsoo formulated his excuse, ready to use it. When Chanyeol climbed out of the pool, water cascading down his body like in those commercials that came on TV, Kyungsoo forgot what he was going to say. He tried to control the flush and heat that was creeping up his cheeks and when he realized that he couldn't, he looked down at his feet, trying to hide his face.

"You can come in with your shirt on you know." Chanyeol said to him, head dipped so that he was at level with Kyungsoo. "You don't have to take it off. It's okay."

Kyungsoo couldn't help but glance up at him in surprise. At this point Kyungsoo shouldn't have been surprised. Chanyeol always knew his deepest fears, his insecurities, even if he didn't voice them out loud.

Chanyeol's face was close. So close that Kyungsoo could count the lashes on his eyes, feel his breath on his cheeks. Kyungsoo felt his heart speed up in his chest and then the pit of his stomach go cold when Kyungsoo realized that he had been staring a bit too long.

"Come on. The water is warm and it feels really good."

Before Kyungsoo could protest he was falling into the water with a splash. It was all water fights after that. They slashed each other, tried to pull off each other's shorts under water, played chicken fight and then just floated around when they were too tired.

Kyungsoo was so busy enjoying himself that he forgot to ponder about something important. If Chanyeol figured everything out about Kyungsoo even without him telling him, did he perhaps happen to figure out how Kyungsoo didn't know what he was supposed to feel around Chanyeol anymore?

**

 

Teenage boys being teenage boys had one topic that they loved talking about: girls.

Baekhyun was on another one of his Taeyeon noona rants that Kyungsoo was not paying attention to. “And Taeyeon noona thanked me! Can you imagine that? She thanked me! She totally has the hots for me.”

Jongdae scoffed at that and Chanyeol peeled into laughter. “Dude. You need to see a doctor. Something is really wrong with that head of yours. She thanked you for carrying four heavy boxes to her car. That in no way converts to her having the hots for you.” Kyungsoo silently thanked Jongdae for telling Baekhyun the harsh truth. He really needed to see a doctor. The dude was delusional most of the time. Especially when it involved his lovely Taeyeon noona.

“You didn’t see the look on her face. She totally likes me!” Baekhyun was getting borderline shrill now and Kyungsoo imagined blowing him away with a ‘huff’ and a ‘puff’ just like the big bad wolf that he was.

“You know,” Chanyeol cut in, apparently tired of Baekhyun’s rant too, “today, during lab, Eunji asked me whether there was someone you liked.” When no one said anything, Kyungsoo looked up from his Calculus homework to see Chanyeol looking at him expectantly.

He froze in place, unsure of how he was going to deal with that problem now that the bombshell was thrown right in his face. He caught a sight of his face in the mirror behind Chanyeol and saw how wide his eyes were, indicating how truly rattled he was. He looked down at his lap, hiding his eyes and willing the pricking sensation to go away. Of all the times, why would his eyes choose to water now? He found his mind wandering to that conversation he had with Ruyeol, but he stopped himself from thinking any further about it. He didn’t need to twist this…whatever this feeling was…into something that would make his mother want to spray him with holy water.

“Oh come on Soo.” Jongdae let out an exasperated sigh, continuing, “we all know the truth. There is no point in hiding it from us. I’ve seen the way you look at Soojung. Are you afraid to admit that you like her because Yeol likes her too?”

Kyungsoo didn’t know where Jongdae developed this vexed idea of him liking Soojung and he was about to tell him the same when he noticed that the look on Jongdae’s face wasn’t challenging, like it would have been if he was challenging him. His eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed. Was he perhaps concerned? Though concerned about what, Kyungsoo didn’t know.

“Its fine, you know,” Chanyeol tried to assure him when Kyungsoo had still not answered. “Even if you like her, I mean. I don’t mind sharing. Not with you.” He grinned like the idiot teenager he was and threw his guitar pick at  Kyungsoo. The moment was broken and Kyungsoo silently heaved a sigh of relief. He still hadn’t figured out what to do about the odd feelings roiling in the pit of his belly every time he looked at Chanyeol. He knew where those tummy flips and twinges in his chest were headed but he was too scared to give it a name. Because if he did, then it would be real.

 

 

“I know you don’t like Soojung.” Jongdae admitted one day on their way back from school. It was only the two of them that day because Chanyeol and Baekhyun had gone home with their lab partners to work on their projects.

“Then why do you keep insisting that I do?” Kyungsoo was genuinely curious about that.

“Because I see the look on your face when we start talking about which girls we like and yours goes extra blank. More blank than the usual, you know. That means you’re trying to hide something. And you wouldn’t hide it from us even if it was important. At least not from Chanyeol. But you seem to get most affected when he asks you about it, which means that it is embarrassing enough to even hide from him. Or more likely to be something about him. So I just wanted to help you out.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you keep insisting on Soojung though.” Kyungsoo didn’t understand how Jongdae’s brain worked.

“That would be the least suspicious answer, especially if you go all deathly pale on Chanyeol. It would explain why you’re so worked up over it.”

Kyungsoo ran that explanation in his head a couple of times to see whether it made sense. But it still didn’t answer why Jongdae thought that he needed help. It’s not like Jongdae knew about Kyungsoo’s more than friendly attraction to Chanyeol.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Jongdae interrupted Kyungsoo’s thought process. “I know that you’re attracted to Chanyeol and I just wanted to help you out because it seems like you’re not ready to tell him that yet.”

Kyungsoo was so surprised by this that he tripped on his own feet and fell face first into the pavement.

“Oh my god Soo! Are you okay?”

After a lot of fussing and dusting and inspection to see in Kyungsoo is okay, Jongdae let him go.

“Since when did you know?” Kyungsoo wanted to pretend like Jongdae had never said anything but he knew that he couldn’t run away from this one.

“A while.”

“Are you disgusted?” This was what mattered to Kyungsoo the most.

“What? No! Hell no! You’re my friend Soo. And nothing is changing that. Especially not something like this.” Jongdae reached out for Kyungsoo’s hand, squeezing it. Normally, Kyungsoo was not a fan of physical affection, but he let this slide. He knew how much of an effort it must have been for Jangdae to do something like this even after knowing that Kyungsoo was attracted to boys.

“Thank you.” Thank you for being so accepting about it. Thank you for still wanting to be my friend. Thank you for not making me feel so alone anymore.

“Buy me an ice cream if you really want to thank me.” Jongdae raised an eyebrow at Kyungsoo as if challenging him to refuse.

Kyungsoo laughed and nodded.

When they were feasting their ice creams a few minutes later, Jongdae nudged Kyungsoo with his elbow. “You can come out of your closet when you’re ready okay? Closets are for clothes, not human boys. Even though it’s okay to hide in them for a while.”

Kyungsoo punched Jongdae for his closet joke and then nodded. He could see the sincerity in his eyes.

“Just for a little while,” Kyungsoo agreed.

 

 

A little while turned out to be a lot longer. Just because Jongdae had figured it out and was supportive didn’t mean that Kyungsoo was comfortable with it. He lived in a very orthodox household and he was well aware of his mother’s antagonism towards anything homosexual. He didn’t even dare bring up the topic of homosexuality to a father who only asked him to keep his grades up and didn’t care for much else about his son’s life. He always felt like he was walking on eggshells at home. There was no way that his mother would figure out that he was gay from the way he ate or the amount of time he spent in the shower, but he found himself being jumpy about every little thing. There was that nagging thought at the back of his mind all the time. What if they found out?

Even if his home situation was more supportive, high school isn’t the best place to come out as gay. He could have probably told Chanyeol and Baekhyun about it, and they would have kept his secret, but there just never seemed to be a right time. You can’t come out to your best friend as gay while you’re in the middle of math homework. Also, there was that issue about Ruyeol that Kyungsoo had never really gotten around to discussing with Chanyeol. Was Chanyeol like his own parents? Did Chanyeol believe that being gay was a disease like Kyungsoo’s mother did? Kyungsoo was too scared to find out. He was unwilling to lose his best friend. So Kyungso just kept pushing it and delaying it, telling himself that he would do it soon.

Jongdae was true to his word and never uttered a word about it to anyone. Though he did worry about Kyungsoo and would sometimes get this frown line in the middle of his forehead from worrying too much, he was always there for Kyungsoo.

High school was a battle field and a playground. Chanyeol was in most of Kyungsoo’s classes and had taken up permanent residence in the seat behind Kyungsoo (in all their classes) so as to not hinder his view of the board with his tall height and broad shoulders. (Kyungsoo called him a beanstalk a few times to tone down that ego. It didn’t work.) Classes together meant that homework could be done together. While homework mostly consisted of Chanyeol playing his guitar while Kyungsoo solved the questions and then handed him his book to copy, they had fun because Chanyeol loved to sing and Kyungsoo loved listening to his voice. Lunch was a noisy affair, with all four of them luckily having the same lunch period and making sure that the entire cafeteria knew that they were present. That was mostly because of the boisterous laughter of the three pigs except this one time when Kyungsoo got really mad at Baekhyun for sticking gum in his hair for a dare. Kyungsoo's scream of fury had even startled the birds in China that day and Baekhyun had started hiccupping in fear. It took three days to find the cure for Baekhyun’s hiccups which was coincidentally Kyungsoo screaming at him again.

 

In between all of this, Kyungsoo dealt with the ‘crisis’ surrounding his sexuality in silence. He tried ignoring it on most days, but it was hard to pretend like he didn’t have the world’s biggest crush on Chanyeol. When Chanyeol would sit beside him in lunch, his thigh carelessly brushing alongside Kyungsoo’s he’d find himself keeping his leg still and hoping that Chanyeol would not move his leg away anytime soon. When Chanyeol would sit beside him to copy his homework, he’d find himself glancing at Chanyeol’s face more than necessary before he’d catch himself and stop. He wanted to be close to Chanyeol, touch Chanyeol and he found himself making tiny excuses to do so; a brush of fingers to move his hair out of his eyes, a poke on the cheek when his dimple appeared. He wanted to be more than friends with Chanyeol but it didn’t seem like Chanyeol wanted the same. He treated Kyungsoo like he always did. He tackled Kyungsoo into the pool, he poked him in the ribs between classes, he threw his arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulders during a movie; but they were always just friendly touches, not secretly lingering ones that Kyungsoo wanted.

Since Chanyeol didn’t seem to be attracted to him, Kyungsoo started questioning his level of attractiveness. Though he knew that Chanyeol wasn’t gay, a little irrational part of him argued that it didn’t matter whether Chanyeol was gay or not to find him attractive. He was going through a rocky phase emotionally and he wasn’t dealing with it well. His feelings didn’t make sense to him most of the time but that didn’t mean that they would go away. He felt jealous whenever Chanyeol checked out another girl in front of him and he had this desperate urge to go to extreme lengths to make Chanyeol jealous. It didn’t work out very well for Kyungsoo and he felt himself losing confidence in himself as days passed. It was as if he was going back to those days before he met Chanyeol; a complete circle.

The gum in his hair incident happened to become a good thing for Kyungsoo. Chanyeol had taken it upon himself to ‘save the world from seeing the atrocious bald patch’ on Kyungsoo’s head where he had had to cut off a patch of hair with the gum in it. Having experimented with several shades of hair dye in the past couple of years, Chanyeol was an expert with hair dye. So a little activity with the hair trimmer, a few hours with hair dye in his hair and a wash later, Kyungsoo couldn’t recognize the redhead that was looking back at him in the mirror. If the whistle that Jongdae let out was any indication, Kyungsoo looked smoking hot.

Needless to say, Kyungsoo became instantaneously famous in school. He drew quite a lot of attention from boys and girls alike and that boosted his self-confidence up again. Once again it was Chanyeol who had saved him and Kyungsoo was starting to wonder what he had done in his past life to deserve a friend like Chanyeol. Then came the million dollar question that Kyungsoo was too afraid to ask himself. Was he willing to risk his friendship with Chanyeol for the sake of something more? He barely deserved Chanyeol’s friendship. Wanting something more was nothing but greed. He should just respect Chanyeol’s space and back off. What he was doing was wrong and Kyungsoo was basically violating Chanyeol without his consent or knowledge. Kyungsoo felt disgusted with himself and vowed to back off. He would let himself touch Chanyeol with less than pure intentions anymore.

All of this just meant one thing: Kyungsoo’s ‘coming out’ was being pushed further away into the land of ‘not happening any time soon’.

**

 

Before they knew it they were seniors and had one final year to go. Chanyeol had gotten a car for his birthday and was designated chauffeur and assigned the task of driving them to school every morning. This was by far the most stressful part of his life ever because he usually had to calm down a frantic Kyungsoo pressing on his car’s horn one too many times when Baekhyun refused to get out of his house unless his hair was styled perfectly in a state of disarray.

“We’re going to be late because of you!” He’d scream at Baekhyun as he would rush to the car with his shoes in his hand. “Why did it take so long?”

“Had to do my hair.”

Kyungsoo would look at Baekhyun’s hair in confusion while Jongdae would cackle to his heart’s content. “It doesn’t look like you combed your hair.”

“It took an hour to get it into this state of perfection.”

Kyungsoo looked baffled the first few times and tried to comb it right for him, only to have his hands stuck in all that hair spray. That would lead to a shouting match between the two of them consisting of “hey! don’t touch my hair” and “I’m trying to fix it for you. It looks like a crow’s nest” until they reached school. Eventually Baekhyun learned to do his hair quickly so that they didn’t have to be late anymore and Kyungsoo stopped trying to fix it when he realised that he could avoid having sticky hands if he just let Baekhyun walk around with that crow’s nest on his head.

Jongdae had set his eyes on studying law and was pouring all his effort into getting the necessary credits for it. He spent many hours at the school library referring books, acing tests, writing essays and applying to colleges. Kyungsoo often gave him company at the library, settling down with the works of O. Henry or Hemmingway. He’d be writing too, but not essays. He loved fiction and let himself get lost in it. He had entered a few story writing competitions and had won twice so far. That only served as fuel for him to delve further into it.

Chanyeol was part of the school band and he seemed to be fine with. He wasn’t exactly having a blast but he wasn’t complaining because he got to write songs and perform them. He just didn’t click with the others in the band and that was a severe mood dampener for him most of the time. He begged Baekhyun to leave the acapella group and come join him in the band but their music teacher didn’t give him the permission for it. Chanyeol considered dropping out but he put up with it anyways because he loved writing music and performing in front of a crowd.

All of them had some or the other thing going on so they rarely left school together. Hanging out became more of a planned activity that they did on weekends and often one of them would end up cancelling on the other three.

In between all of this flurry of activity, Kyungsoo would sometimes just sit down in the quiet of the library and get lost in his thoughts. He’d think about the four of them. How they had so much fun. How they had so many precious memories together. He’d think about Chanyeol and how he wished he could tell him that he thought of him as more than a friend. He would daydream about telling Chanyeol that he liked him and play scenarios of how Chanyeol would respond. All of them were hopelessly romantic and as cheesy as the lasagne Chanyeol brought him for lunch. He would dream of a life very like his current one, but in that life Chanyeol would kiss him in the hallways and introduce him not as his best friend but as his boyfriend. Then he’d realise what he was doing and a heavy sinking feeling would accumulate in his gut. There were times when he would wonder how life would have turned out for him if he was a girl. He probably would have confessed to Chanyeol already and they would have been dating. They would have been high school sweet hearts. Kyungsoo caught himself smiling at his book and realised once again that it was a daydream; just a daydream. And his heart broke all over again.

 

One weekend when both Jongdae and Baekhyun had cancelled, last minute that too, Chanyeol drove by to Kyungsoo’s house to pick him up.

“Where are we going?” he asked, as he settled in the passenger seat, picking up Chanyeol’s ipod to change the song that was playing.

“Somewhere nice,” Chanyeol replied mysteriously as he started driving.

“Nice?”

“You’ll see.”

“You can just tell me.” Kyungsoo glanced at the side of Chanyeol’s face.

 “It’s a surprise,” Chanyeol teased, taking is yes off the road for a second to look at Kyungsoo and smile.

“Well, then I guess I’ll let your surprise me.” Kyungsoo deadpanned in that monotone voice of his making Chanyeol laugh out loud.

They spoke about a lot of things as they drove for the next one and half hours. Chanyeol always had something to say, so that wasn’t anything new. Kyungsoo however, only showed this talkative side around Chanyeol or Baekhyun and Jongdae, but more so around Chanyeol. So that was special and Kyungsoo knew how much Chanyeol appreciated him opening up. Whenever Kyungsoo talked Chanyeol would shut up and listen to what he had to say. He would pay one hundred percent attention to him and Kyungsoo loved that feeling of having someone hanging on his every word.

When they arrived it was already dark. They were someplace outside the city and there was no artificial lighting of any sorts as far as Kyungsoo could see. No street lamps, no stores, nothing.

“The site said that this is the best place for star gazing in our area,” Chanyeol said, putting the car in park and turning the engine off.

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows at him but said nothing as he stepped out of the car and looked around.

“How is it so bright?” he asked, looking around and being able to see his surroundings quite clearly despite the lack of artificial lighting.

“Look up,” Chanyeol came around to join Kyungsoo near the front of the car and tilted his head upwards.

Kyungsoo gasped at the sight. It was probably the best night sky he had ever seen in his lifetime. He had always been told that there are millions of stars in night sky but he had only ever seen a few.

“They were right,” he whispered, trying not to disturb the beauty of his moment with his voice.

“About what?”

“There really are millions of them.” Kyungsoo could see so many stars that if he started counting at that minute he’d probably have a head full of white hair before he would be done.

“I thought you were talking about this being the best site for star gazing.”

“That too.”

Chanyeol chuckled. “Come, help me take the things out of the boot.”

Kyungsoo followed Chanyeol to the boot of the car expecting to find a telescope in it, but instead he was handed a mat.

“Spread it out, will you?” Chanyeol requested, pulling out a bag and a mini cooler.

Kyungsoo did as he was asked, still baffled by the turn of events. He would be lying if he said that his heart wasn’t beating considerably faster. Chanyeol was known to be impulsive and he probably could be pegged to do things like this but this was unexpected and Kyungsoo was excited. He didn’t know what he was expecting but the mere idea of a picnic under the stars was enough to have his insides squirming with giddy pleasure.

Chanyeol had packed Kyungsoo’s favourite lasagne, two slices of chocolate pastry and a bottle of the non-alcoholic champagne that Kyungsoo liked. He had even gone to the trouble of putting it in the mini cooler to keep it cold. It was a sinful meal that Kyungsoo knew would go straight to his thighs. He complained about it and Chanyeol laughed at him, telling him that he looked perfect as he was and that a couple of extra pounds on his thighs wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. This made Kyungsoo smile a little wider and forget about his insecurities surrounding his looks. Chanyeol always made him feel better about himself

Chanyeol joked, Kyungsoo laughed. Chanyeol poked fun at him and Kyungsoo punched him in retaliation.

When they were sitting with their weights leaning on the hands stretched out behind them, Chanyeol’s hand accidentally touched Kyungsoo’s. That tiny little contact sent tingles up Kyungsoo’s hand. He pretended to be unaffected and continued watching the stars but he was so hyper aware of the contact that he couldn’t think of anything else. Slowly Chanyeol slipped one finger over Kyungsoo’s and then another. Before Kyungsoo could register what exactly was happening Chanyeol reached out and intertwined his fingers with Kyungsoo’s and Kyungsoo let him. It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It didn’t feel weird at all. It felt great. It felt so good Kyungsoo found himself not wanting to ever let go.

“Your hand is so small,” Chanyeol said, playing with Kyungsoo’s hand when they had finally resorted to lying down and gazing at the stars. “It fits perfectly in mine.”

Kyungsoo’s heart thudded harder against his chest. In all his day dreams this would have been the perfect moment for a confession. This wasn’t a day dream though, so Kyungsoo held his tongue. What if something went wrong?

“Do you sometimes imagine what if we weren’t who we are? I mean, what if we were different people? Not you and me. Would we still have met?”

Kyungsoo pondered over this for a couple of moments before answering. “Well. There is that thing called fate that people like to believe in.”

“Do you believe in it?” Chanyeol sounded vulnerable.

“Fate?”

“Yeah, Fate. Destiny. Do you believe in it?”

“Yes. Not one hundred percent, but I do,” Kyungsoo answered honestly.

“What do you think our fate would have been had we been born on opposite ends of the world?”

“I think we would have found each other eventually.”

 

Kyungsoo was greedy for more. He wanted to do more than hold hands. He wanted to look into Chaneyol’s eyes, trace the bridge of his nose, and brush his cheek with his thumb. He wanted to bury his head under Chanyeol’s chin and breathe in the scent of his cologne. He wanted to hug him tight, bury his face into his chest and forget about the world. He wanted to confess his feelings for Chanyeol and let the stars bear witness of his love for his best friend.

He let himself imagine it in his head and be content as he lay on the grass beside Chanyeol.

 

The drive back was silent and that gave Kyungsoo plenty of time to fight the battle that was raging within himself. After the heart to heart that they had had, Kyungsoo felt like it was like the old times again when they didn’t have secrets from each other.

In a moment of vulnerability he blurted out, “I’m gay, Yeol.”

Chanyeol laughed at that and shook his head. “I think happy sounds better Soo. Saying gay instead of happy is so gay.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m gay as in homosexual.”

Kyungsoo expected Chanyeol to respond in many ways, but stopping the car at the side of the road and staring at him for a long while was not one of them. “You serious?” Chanyeol finally whispered, breaking the spell that seemed to have fallen upon him.

Kyungsoo nodded.

“Since when have you been…...” He trailed off as if unable to bring himself to say it. The expression on his face was not very welcoming to look at.

“I think I’ve always been gay, Chanyeol.” Kyungsoo was being awfully calm for someone who was one pin drop away from freaking out. “You don’t become gay. It’s not something you become. It’s who you are.”

Chanyeol blinked for a couple of seconds seemingly at a loss for words. “I’m sorry,” he apologised, “I didn’t… I didn’t mean that. What I meant to ask was…was…” he grimaced and looked away from Kyungsoo, cutting off his question. “What I meant was…since when have you known that you…” he gestured with his hands.

Kyungsoo understood what he was struggling to say and it hurt him. He knew that it was a big deal for Chanyeol to accept the fact that his best friend wasn’t who he claimed to be all those years, but he couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘gay’. How was Kyungsoo supposed to expect their friendship to remain unchanged when his best friend was apparently struggling to accept that Kyungsoo was gay? Who would have thought that the easy going Park Chanyeol was a homophobe? Kyungsoo wanted to get out of the car. It was suffocating him. He couldn’t bear to sit in there and pretend everything was okay. But Chanyeol had asked him a question and he was going to answer him.

“I’ve known it for quite a while now. I did spend more time trying to figure out my feelings than accepting them.”

Chanyeol didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t even nod his head to show that he was listening. He just kept staring at the dashboard and that pissed Kyungsoo off. He would take Chanyeol screaming and cursing at him any day but he couldn’t deal with this silence. It was deafening and he just wanted to scream, if that is what he had to do to make it go away.

He let himself out of the car and started to walk away, letting the hot tears flow down his cheeks. He didn’t try to hide them or wipe them away. Who was going to see them? He could cry all he wanted on his way back home. It wasn’t like anybody cared. Chanyeol hadn’t stopped him from leaving. He hadn’t shouted for him to come back. He just sat there and let Kyungsoo walk away.

Kyungsoo would be given the same treatment as Ruyeol now. He would be estranged from friends and family. He was willing to keep his sexuality a secret all his life if only his close friends would support him. He couldn’t expect support from anywhere else anyway. If his mother ever found out she would first drag him to the priest and then maybe to the nut house. It would be a blessing if he didn’t get evicted. Maybe Jongdae would let him stay over for a few days, but that would only last till his mother decided that she didn’t want a gay boy sleeping in the same room as her son. Would he even be able to finish high school? Despite everything he wanted to be able to finish high school at least. It was a good thing that he had saved up on his allowance, maybe it would let him tide over for a few weeks. He could find a job in that time. He would figure something out.

Kyungsoo was walking on the main road, throwing a pity party for himself in his head, when Chanyeol drove up beside him. “Get in,” he shouted through the open window.

Kyunsoo ducked his head and tried to hide his face. He didn’t want Chanyeol seeing his red eyes and tear streaked face.

“Get in, Soo.”

Kyungsoo ignored him.

“Please, Soo. Get in. Let me take you home.”

Kyungsoo could find his own way back home. He didn’t need his help.

“Soo….please. Please.”

Kyungsoo felt a pinch in his chest when he heard how heartbroken Chanyeol sounded.

He got into the car without meeting his eyes and let Chanyeol take him home.

It was funny how they were talking about being each other’s destiny earlier in the night and then they got to the point where they didn’t even know if they would talk to each other ever again.

 

 

Kyungsoo cried in bed that night. He tossed and turned in his sheets, the events of the night playing and replaying in his head. He remembered how Chanyeol had frozen up at his confession. He remembered how he had kept silent on the drive back. It made Kyungsoo’s chest hurt and hot tears flowed out slowly from the corner of his eyes and wet the pillow.

He regretted telling Chanyeol that he was gay and he wanted to take it all back. He wanted his friendship back even if he had to keep his silence for the rest of his life. He would even pretend to like girls to make Chanyeol feel comfortable round him. He would watch in silnce as Chanyeol went on dates with girls he liked. He would cheer for him when the girl he was crushing on would talk to him. He would hide away his love for Chanyeol and never let it see the light of day just so that Chanyeol would never have to deal with the burden of his feelings.

I’m sorry, Chanyeol. I’m sorry for being gay. I’m sorry for falling in love with you. I’m sorry for selfishly loving you when I should be unconditionally loving you as your friend. I’m sorry. I will do better. Please, just please talk to me again.

He fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning after an entire night of regret. If he had only kept his mouth shut. If only.

The next morning Kyungsoo was woken up by the sound of someone stumbling and falling on the stairs, followed by a loud “I’m okay.”

He thought he was dreaming for a couple of seconds because that voice sounded a lot like Chanyeol’s and there was no way Chanyeol would come near him anytime soon.

He was proven wrong though, when Chanyeol bounded into his room with donuts and coffee. His hair was still wet from his morning shower and he was smiling his 1000 watt smile like the previous night hadn’t happened.

Kyungsoo wanted to jump up and grab the donuts and pretend like everything was the same as before. Nothing had changed. But everything had, and Chanyeol’s sudden change in attitude from last night made Kyungsoo wary. He wanted to hope. He desperately wanted to hope but he didn’t want to be hurt again.

“Listen about last night,” Chanyeol started, taking a seat at the foot of Kyungsoo’s bed, “what I did was wrong. It was very wrong. I was an idiot. I was stupid. I shouldn’t have behaved like that.”

Kyungsoo sat up and nodded at him. “It’s okay.” He was willing to take that and move forward. He didn’t want anything more from Chanyeol. He just wanted to go back to what they were before he opened his dumb mouth.

“No, it’s not okay,” Chanyeol argued, “and I’m not done. I am sorry for how I took it. It must have been very hard for you to finally admit it and instead of being supportive I just freaked out on you. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I am a dumb fucking idiot.”

“As long as you know that,” Kyungsoo teased him, breaking out into a smile. He was so happy. Fuck. He was ecstatic. He wanted to scream and jump on his bed and then scream some more. He wanted to tell the whole city that he was gay because it didn’t matter what others thought if him anymore. His best friend was okay with him being gay. That was enough for him.

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Of course, you dumb fucking idiot.”

“Hey! I never gave you permission to call me that.”

“As if I’d ever need your permission for anything.”

It wasn’t the confession that he dreamed of. He didn’t get to tell Chanyeol that he loved him. He didn’t get to kiss him softly or bury his head in his chest as they snuggled under the covers, but it was okay. He was happy because just like that everything had gone back to the way it was.

He told Baekhyun one evening when they were all chilling at Chanyeol’s place and Baekhyun didn’t seem surprised. “What? You always seemed very gay to me,” he said, earning a few smacks from Kyungsoo in return.

Everything was the same, yet everything had changed.

Kyungsoo didn’t have to pretend like he wasn’t checking out the basketball team when they were running around in their shorts anymore. Just because he was in love with Chanyeol didn’t mean that he could appreciate some fine ass specimens. (Don’t judge him.) Sometimes Baekhyun even pitched in his two pennies on what he thought of Minho’s thighs or Jhonny’s ass. “So what if I’m straight? There’s no rules against straight men checking out other men. I’m taking stock of my competition. A man has got to know what he’s up against, you know.”

Jongdae would laugh at them every time and smack their heads whenever their imagination got a little out of hand, but he was always a good sport, even when they were checking out his ass as he walked away from them.

They were initially just four kids who liked hanging out together, but over time it became so much more than that.

"So wait a second," Chanyeol wheezed in between laughter one day during lunch, "you became friends with me just because you needed the seat?"

Baekhyun and Jongdae also cackled away. Kyungsoo wondered what was funnier: his _reason_ for becoming friends with Chanyeol or his reason for becoming friends with _Chanyeol_.

"Dude, I think I should be offended, but this is so funny."

Kyungsoo watched them all with fondness as they continued teasing each other and laughing. He was glad that they were his friends.

 

**

 

College was a big step for all of them. Baekhyun had decided not to attend college, having been scouted by an agency a couple of months before graduation. He had always wanted to be a singer and life was finally presenting him with the opportunity that he wanted.

Jongdae had already received his letter of acceptance from a prestigious law school and was pretty stoked about it.

Kyungsoo wanted to write. He wanted to write books: mostly murder mysteries, but also romantic comedies, because secretly he was a sap though unwilling to admit it. He also loved literature so he chose to spend some quality time in college learning literature. Maybe he would be able to draw some inspiration for his novels from the classics.

Chanyeol, however, was a lost puppy with no sense of aim or direction. He wrote songs and he played his guitar. He was part of a band in school but they weren’t really his ‘flavour’ so that ended even before graduation rolled by. The only option for him was to just pick a course, literally any course and flow with it. Chanyeol being Chanyeol, and also being unable to physically separate himself from Kyungsoo for any longer than three minutes, decided to attend the same college as him. No one was really sure about what classes he signed up for because life turned around 180 even before they could unpack all the things from their cardboard boxes.

Then all was chaos.

 

The first weekend after college started Kyungsoo and Chanyeol decided to go scout the city and maybe pick up a few things for their room.

They wandered around aimlessly for a while, just looking at places and filing away info for later use. It was hot and Kyungsoo was beginning to feel irritated when Chanyeol cracked a joke at his expense.

Kyungsoo turned around to glare at Chanyeol. It was a special glare that Kyungsoo had perfected only for Chanyeol. His eyes were wide and threatening and anyone else would have been petrified under the glare. But not Chanyeol. Kyungsoo found it hard to control his expression and one corner of his lips quirked up just a little bit, throwing his him off his game.

Chanyeol surprised him by clicking a picture of him with his Polaroid camera (he carried that stupid thing everywhere) while he glared at Chanyeol for his stupid joke. The moment was lost in surprise when the flash blinded him for a second and then they were both waving the picture in the air, impatiently waiting for it to dry and show them the special moment that Chanyeol had managed to capture on film.

While appraising the pic with far more concentration than they used while doing their homework, Chanyeol pointed out to Kyungsoo the small lines near the outer corner of his eyes and the slight upturn of one corner of his lips indicating that he was indeed more playful than perceived to be.

A couple of punches (thanks to Kyungsoo) and a couple of girly screams (thanks to Chanyeol) later, the picture was safely tucked away in Chanyeol's pocket.

Kyungsoo later saw that picture framed and placed on Chanyeol's nightstand along with other special keepsakes that Chanyeol liked to keep there. When he asked Chanyeol why he'd had decided to frame that picture, he had smiled that smile of his where his eyes twinkled.

"It's special," he said.

 

After spending the sweltering hot day walking around and buying quite a few unnecessary items (like the baby shoes and the pantyhose, seriously who the hell was even going to use those?) Kyungsoo was craving something chilled.

He had barely mentioned this to Chanyeol and he was already being dragged by the wrist to some place that Chanyeol claimed to be just perfect.

“It’s a bar. It’s a little shady,” he explained, still not having let go of Kyungsoo’s wrist, “but you’ll like it. It’s cosy.”

“What do mean by cosy?”

“Not very big, not very crowded, dim lighting and has a juke box.”

When Kyungsoo grunted his approval after they had claimed two seats in the far corner of the bar, Chanyeol grinned with joy. Kyungsoo’s approval always meant a lot to him and Kyungsoo was well aware of that. That is why he always tried to give Chanyeol a chance to show him all he’s got before giving a verdict on anything.

Three mugs of chilled beer later, Kyungsoo could feel the beginning of a buzz creeping on him. The buzz made everything seem so much nicer: the lights, the music, the fried chicken wings and Chanyeol. Kyungsoo found himself admiring Chanyeol more than he allowed himself to otherwise, but he didn’t force himself to stop. He was always holding himself back, biting his tongue, averting his eyes because he cared about their friendship too much to slip up. For once he wanted to let go. He wanted to enjoy this feeling a little longer; just a little longer. Chanyeol was smiling so wide that Kyungsoo could see all his perfectly aligned teeth. He could see the way his lips were stretched tight and cheeks pushed up. His mouth looked so kissable. Kyungsoo wanted to bend forward and kiss him, even if his kiss landed on Chanyeol’s teeth. He wondered what it would feel like to run his tongue along them. Kyungsoo drank in the attention that Chanyeol was paying him. His eyes were looking right at Kyungsoo and didn’t stray anywhere else even for one second. Kyungsoo said something that must have been funny and Chanyeol was laughing so hard, throwing his head back and slapping his knee like it was the funniest thing in the world.

Five mugs of chilled beer and three plates of chicken wings later, the shadows played across his Chanyeol’s face just right, highlighting his cupid’s bow and making his lips seem so much fuller. Kyungsoo was using all his will power to not bend forward and land a kiss right there. Kyungsoo must have been imagining it but Chanyeol’s eyes were twinkling with something Kyungsoo couldn’t put his finger on. At this point Kyungsoo was buzzed enough to not be able to put his finger on anything so it was most probably his imagination.

The walk back to the dorm was slow, but Kyungsoo wished that it could last forever. Chanyeol had an arm around his waist even though Kyungsoo was totally capable of walking without falling down but he wasn’t going to tell Chanyeol that. He quite liked the warmth of that hand and he must have faked being a little more buzzed than he actually was in order to ensure that the arm stayed in position all the way back.

When Chanyeol got him into bed and bent down to whisper a good night before tucking the sheets under his chin, Kyungsoo had to hold himself back from reaching out to Chanyeol kissing him hard on his mouth. That would have the perfect end to a perfect day. It wasn’t Kyungsoo’s fate to experience that. So he drifted into a dreamland where he could live a life that was far out of reach in the real world.

 

 

Word got around college pretty quickly about Chanyeol’s guitar skills. One minute he was the dorky kid who laughed and lunged a guitar around. Three minutes and one perfectly executed song later, he was the guy that everyone in college either wanted or wanted to be.

It wasn’t much later that the cause of the chaos that was going to uproot Kyungsoo’s life and throw it to the wind presented itself at their door.

Kyungsoo gave up rummaging through the boxes for his shoes when he heard a rap on the door.

“Is this Chanyeol’s room?”

Kyungsoo glared at the tall blonde guy standing in front of his door with his hands in his pockets. No hi or hello. Not that Kyungsoo was expecting much. But still. Just because the guy looked like one of those angry birds from that game didn’t mean that he had to play the role.

“Are you a foreign exchange student?” The guy bent down to get closer to Kyungsoo’s face.

Kyungsoo took a step back from him. “Um, no?”

“Why do you sound confused about it?”

“I’m not. I’m not confused about anything.” Kyungoo scowled at the guy but it seemed to have little effect.

“You sure sounded that way.” He took another step closer to Kyungsoo.

“What do want?” Kyungsoo took another step back. Did that guy not understand the concept of personal space?

“I want to know if this is Chanyeol’s room.”

“Yes, it is. But he is in class right now. Maybe if you leave a number I’ll ask him to call back-" The tall guy sauntered into the room and took a seat at Kyungsoo’s desk surprising Kyungsoo enough to make him forget what he was saying. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Waiting for Chanyeol to return. He will come back here after class. Right?”

Kyungsoo cocked an eyebrow at the rude jerk. “You should either leave your number or come back later. Chanyeol will be here after 7.”

“That’s great. Only half an hour. I’ll wait.” The guy tried to make himself comfortable in Kyungsoo’s chair, crossing his long legs and slouching down a little in his seat. He pulled out his phone and started to meddle with it.

“Are you always like this?” Kyungsoo asked. He couldn’t stomach it anymore. He considered keeping quiet and just letting the guy wait but he couldn’t make himself do it.

“Like what?” He looked up from his phone at Kyungsoo, giving him a once over. Kyungsoo felt inadequate in the height department for the first time in his life even though he had spent all of his life around Chanyeol. He surreptitiously lifted his shoulders a bit and puffed out his chest to seem bigger. (Not that it made any difference.)

“Like a jerk. No social skills whatsoever.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. I tend to do that sometimes.” He smiled sheepishly at Kyungsoo and ran a hand through his hair. Kyungsoo was caught off guard by that sheepish smile. “You see, everyone on campus kinda knows me, so I tend to forgo introducing myself. I’m Kris by the way.”

Kyungsoo wanted to clarify to this Kris guy that the reason he said that wasn’t because the lack of introduction, though that did play a role, but he was interrupted by Jongdae’s call and instead resorted to bitching about him to Jongdae out in the hallway. He wondered if Kris could hear him but then he decided that he didn’t give much of a damn anyway.

 

Apparently the guy had come to recruit Chanyeol to be part of their band. Kris was part of a five member rock band that was formed just about a year ago. Relatively new, yes, but they had made quite the name for themselves on campus and had even landed a regular gig at a bar recently. They were doing quite well until their lead singer had gone and crashed into a truck while speeding on his bike and had broken enough bones to be bed ridden for the next six months. The bloke was out of commission for way too long and they needed to find a replacement for him if there were to keep the regular gig at the bar. They could get all sentimental and wait for his recovery but honestly, they were making good cash and a couple of them really needed it. So they had decided to look around for a replacement and to their luck Chanyeol seemed perfect. Chanyeol hesitated to say yes because rock wasn’t really his genre and he asked Kris to give him a couple of days to think about it.

“Don’t take too long,” Kris told him once he was in the hallway, turning bump his fist with Chanyeol before walking away.

“Yeah. I’ll let you know soon.”

Once he had closed the door and slumped on his bed Kyungsoo looked up from the Shakespeare he had been trying to read for the past one hour and miserable failing.

“You should do it, you know.” Kyungsoo encouraged Chanyeol.

“You think?” Chanyeol didn’t look very excited.

“You definitely have the talent. You’ve been going around trying to find what you want to do with your life. Maybe this is it.”

That was probably the best and the worst advice that Kyungsoo had ever given in his life because it was the advice that built Chanyeol up but brought his own world crashing down.

 

Though most of the songs that Chanyeol wrote were R&B, he seemed to fit very well with rock. Chanyeol fit into the band like it was tailored just for him. Kyungsoo had accompanied Chanyeol to a couple of practices, on Chanyeol’s insistence, and he found himself surprised by how nice the members were. Even Kris, who had seemed like a jerk at their first meeting wasn’t as bad as Kyungsoo had made him out to be. Besides Kris who played lead guitar there were three others; Yixing played the keyboard, Sehun played bass and Luhan was at the drums. They all welcomed Chanyeol with pats and high fives and smiles and the way they were willing to accommodate Chanyeol and let him take his time to find the right pace made Kyungsoo very happy. He felt like he had put Chanyeol in good hands by convincing him to take Kris up on his offer.

However, accompanying Chanyeol to their practice session was a mistake. Chanyeol sounded so good and his voice was making its way right to Kyungsoo’s gut. It made him feel all kinds of nice and he felt blood rushing south. As if that wasn’t torture, Chanyeol was looking at Kyungsoo as he sang and Kyungsoo had to pull on his shirt a few times to make sure that it was low enough to hide the erection that was straining against his jeans. Kyungsoo had a cold shower after rushing back to his room and willed his erection to go away without him touching it. He was tethering into dangerous territory and he couldn’t let himself go there.

A couple of weeks later, Chanyeol had his very first gig with the band and he was part excited and part nervous.

When Chanyeol had asked him uncertainly, a week earlier, whether he was planning on coming, Kyungsoo had replied with, “What makes you think that I’m going to miss this?” Chanyeol had grinned so hard that Kyungsoo momentarily forgot how to breathe. He felt his chest get tight with affection and he felt like he was going to burst.

“More nervous?” Kyungsoo asked, patting down the collar of Chanyeol’s leather jacket. “More excited,” Chanyeol said, bouncing up and down

“Good. Now go get ‘em giraffe!”

Chanyeol whined at that. “It’s tiger. Go get ‘em tiger.”

“But why would I tell a giraffe that?” Kyungsoo teased.

When Chanyeol whined some more and made a pouty face, Kyungsoo laughed at him and punched his shoulder. That was his very own way of saying ‘go get ‘em tiger’ and Chanyeol knew it.

 

To say that their first gig together was a success was a little of an understatement considering that they were offered a spot to perform again the next weekend. The audience loved the music and had more than loved Chanyeol. The band had performed the same songs as before but there was something in Chanyeol’s voice, something in the way he held the mike and looked into their eyes when he sang that made them fall for him. Kyungsoo first hand knew the effect that Chanyeol could have when he mumbled out a raspy ‘good morning’ with a voice still heavy with sleep. He also knew how tantalising Chanyeol could look with his hair all messy and sweat running down the side of his face. He knew all of this from having seen Chanyeol up close. Even then, seeing Chanyeol on stage, fingering that guitar, holding that mic stand close to his body so that it was rubbing the insides of his thighs, the sweat glinting on his forehead as the lights flashed on his face, closing his eyes as he belted out the final lines of the song in a voice slightly gruff from all the singing, it all drove Kyungsoo up the fucking wall. Chanyeol’s pants were tight on him and he was sporting subtle bulge; Kyungsoo could tell. Chanyeol was turned on by the thrill of his first performance in front of such a receptive crowd. He was enjoying himself and as he grinned and smirked at the crowd Kyungsoo found himself getting even more aroused; if that was even possible. He was trying very hard to ignore the very indecent boner that was raging inside his pants but when a couple of strong drinks hadn’t helped him get rid of any of his arousal he slipped off his chair with a “fuck,” and made a beeline to the restroom.

It was a challenge to even pull his pants down without letting out a hiss, his erection being sensitive enough to shoot tingles all across him from the mere drag of his zipper against the tip. His cock was red, throbbing and heavy in his hand as he pulled it out. God, he hadn’t been so aroused in a long while. All it took was a few tugs, his thumb digging into the sensitive spot below the head, making him shudder with his orgasm so hard that his vision went dark. “Fuck, Chanyeol. Fuck.”

That wasn’t the last time that it happened. Kyungsoo attended as many shows as he could without jeopardising his school work and most nights Kyungsoo found himself hot and wanting. He would ignore it and try to will it away. But there were some days when he just couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. On those days he’d give in. He would let himself imagine it was Chanyeol’s calloused hands or his hot mouth on his dick, burning him hotter, driving him wild till he spilt with a soft moan on his own hand.

 

As time passed, the band was offered more gigs throughout different bars in the city. They were talk of the town and the audience flocked to see them. They sounded great while sober; they sounded even better while drunk. Soon it was obvious they had a fan following and they were soaring high with happiness on their success.

Chanyeol was busier than ever with band practice and he was rarely in the room anymore. When he did come back he would tell Kyungsoo all about his day and Kyungsoo would hang onto every word. He missed Chanyeol but he wasn’t going to complain about it. Even if it meant staying awake till three in the morning for Chanyeol to return. There were times when Chanyeol wouldn’t return to the room after a gig and Kyungsoo would get worried but it seemed like Chanyeol could sense his worry and hed receive a text from him.

_**Staying at Kris’s tonight.** _

It eased Kyungsoo, knowing that Chanyeol was safe. But eventually the staying out became more often and the texts got fewer.

 

Kyungsoo tried to let it go for a while, telling himself that Chanyeol was allowed to have other friends and he was allowed to spend time with people other than him. He tried to be rational with himself about it, but he felt like he was being ignored. It wasn’t that Chanyeol didn’t talk to him or text him often, he did, but they didn’t hang out anymore. They didn’t have their usual coffee runs to the café for coffee and muffins before class because Chanyeol was too tired to wake up early enough to do anything other than dash to class. They didn’t go out for dinner anymore because Chanyeol either had band practice or a gig or plans. These plans never involved Kyungsoo and he was awfully starting to feel left out. Granted that they weren’t in a relationship or anything. But they were friends. They had been friends for almost a decade now. Didn’t that count for anything? There were also those days when Chanyeol stayed out but conveniently forgot to text him that he was doing so. Kyungsoo was always worried on those nights, falling into a fitful sleep after waiting up for Chanyeol’s text. Chanyeol would always come back whole and unharmed, but Kyungsoo worried for him anyway.

Kyungsoo kept this all to himself, as he usually did with his feelings, and tried to pretend like everything was okay. He was lonely but he wouldn’t admit it.

Fortunately for Kyungsoo, Luhan happened to be in the same class as him. They hadn’t noticed each other in class before, with Kyungsoo sitting right up front and Luhan using a cap and a hoodie to hide the fact that he was dozing in class, until they were assigned a paper together.

“You’re taking this class?” Luhan had squeaked when Kyungsoo moved to sit beside him.

It took Kyungsoo a couple of seconds to understand who was talking to him and when Luhan pulled off the hoodie and cap, his eyes widened in recognition. “Luhan?”

“I’m guessing that you didn’t know that I was taking this class either.”

Kyungsoo chuckled and shook his head.

“I guess it’s a good thing we had to do this assignments in pairs, huh?”

Kyungsoo could only agree.

 

 

Luhan was more talkative than Kyungsoo would have ever pegged him to be. He had an opinion on everything and had to make sure that his opinion was known. He even texted Kyungsoo with pictures of items when he was grocery shopping and he’d pair that with some or the other opinion he had about the taste, or the MSG content or maybe a comparison of different flavours of the same thing. With Luhan it was 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. One second he knew the dude. The next second he knew everything about the dude. Luhan had no shame and no inhibitions. He openly told Kyungsoo that he’s bisexual. He liked fucking girls but also like getting fucked. He told him about the time he lost his virginity (he was 15) and also the first time he had a threesome (it was very awkward). Luhan had no secrets and he had nothing to hide. He was like such a breath of fresh air to Kyungsoo because he was the complete opposite of who he was and Kyungsoo liked hanging out with him. He wasn’t willing to spill all his secrets to Luhan yet, but he wasn’t averse to the idea of telling him about them sometime in the future.

He often invited Kyungsoo to their practices and Kyungsoo gladly went. He wanted to see Chanyeol more than the groggy ‘good mornings’ that they mumbled to each other or the occasional lunch that they had together once a week. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo hadn’t spent as much time apart in ten years as they had in those first few months of college. They did text and call each other, but it wasn’t the same.

Soon Kyungsoo was friends with everyone in the band and they often asked him to hang out with them. He was glad for the opportunity because that meant that he could spend more time with Chanyeol who was more than happy that Kyungsoo fit so easily into something that was an important part of his life and he made sure to tell Kyungsoo how happy he was as often as he could.

Things were looking better for Kyungsoo. Maybe he didn’t have to been lonely anymore.

 

Luhan stuck around Kyungsoo even after their project was done. Their friendship had grown quickly and they went without seeing each other only a couple of days of the week. Luhan had even had small chats with Jongdae and Baekhyun whenever they called and they hit it off immediately. Kyungsoo liked how things were turning out.

“So do you top or bottom?” Luhan asked one day over Lunch.

“I’m sorry?” Kyungsoo had no clue what he was talking about. Luhan had a tendency to talk about things randomly and Kyungsoo always had to make him backtrack a little to make sense of what he was saying.

“Or are you a switch? You see more like you top though.” Luhan scratched his chin as he appraised Kyungsoo.

“Are you talking about me in bed?”

“Why yes, of course!” Luhan smiled at him like it was perfectly normal to talk about bedroom activities during lunch in the middle of a crowded cafeteria.

“Are you mad? We’re in public.” Kyungsoo glared at Luhan but that seemed to have zero affect because Luhan just continued talking. Was Kyungsoo losing his touch?

“Well, I would have pegged you to top, but then it’s very likely that you’d bottom because you are not the man you make yourself out to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kyungsoo eyed him warily. Luhan was a little crazy and Kyungsoo was going to be his next victim. He just knew it.

Luhan grinned and winked at Kyungsoo. “That means that you, young man, are in luck.” He did an awful imitation of an old man stroking his beard that make Kyungsoo roll his eyes.

“Just spit it out.” Kyungsoo was right. Now he just had to deal with the craziness and be done with it.

“Well, you see, one of my friends, happens to be interested in you.” Luhan waggled his eyebrows at Kyungsoo.

“Not interested.”

“But you didn’t let me finish.”

“Still not interested.”

“It’s a guy. A man. A dude.”

That made Kyungsoo look up at Luhan in surprise. The only reason he was so obstinately saying no was because he thought that Luhan was trying to introduce him to a girl.

“Yes, Kyungie, I figured it out.”

“I told you not to call me that.” Kyungsoo glared at him again. It didn’t work.

“Is that really the issue here?”

“It is until you agree to stop calling me that.”

“Are we really going to ignore the elephant in the room?” Luhan waved his hands around in the air, drawing the attention of the table beside theirs.

“You are the only elephant in this room.”

“You are hurting my feelings Kyungie.”

“I told you not to call me that.” Kyungsoo glared at the people on the table beside theirs till they looked back down at their food. It was rude to listen to other people’s conversations. Why did no one understand that?

“Fine. I’ll stop. But can we discuss this? Please?”

Kyungsoo finally relented and they made their way back to Kyungsoo’s room so that Luhan could finally tear apart all the walls that Kyungsoo had built around himself. The fact that Kyungsoo had agreed was proof of how much Luhan had grown over him in the past few months.

After Kyungsoo had spilled everything, Luhan tried to summarise it.

“So, you are most definitely gay. You have been in love with your best friend longer than my grandmother has been alive and he most certainly doesn’t like you back because he doesn’t swing that way. So you have basically been painfully single and stuck in a one sided love all this time. Oh my poor Kyungie.” Luhan pulled Kyungsoo into a weird hug where his face was squished against Luhan’s chest as he patted Kyungsoo’s head. “What should I do with you?”

A couple of hours later, they had successfully finished half a dozen bottles of beer among themselves and were feeling nicely buzzed. Luhan had insisted on drowning their grief in alcohol and Kyungsoo didn’t understand how that was supposed to work till the buzz hit him. He felt better (less shittier actually) than he did a half hour ago.

“Have you considered moving on?”

Kyungsoo shook his head.

“Chanyeol isn’t going to be yours, Kyungie.”

“I know. But I can’t bring myself to go out with anyone else. Even if I do have crushes on them, I can’t do it,” Kyungsoo confessed honestly.

“But I feel bad for you. I hate to see you pining by yourself when he is out frolicking.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kyungsoo sat up and looked Luhan in the eye, daring him to try and cover it up.

Luhan studied Kyungsoo’s questioning gaze and then looked away. “Chanyeol has a girlfriend,” he admitted after a couple of seconds. “I’m sorry Kyungie. I didn’t know that you didn’t know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything.”

Kyungsoo felt his chest constrict. He did feel a pang of jealousy over the fact that Chanyeol had a girlfriend, but what really hurt him was the fact that he hadn’t told him about it. “No, I’m glad you did, Lu. He has been my best friend for half of my life but he didn’t even consider telling me that he had a new girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry Kyungie.”

“It’s not your fault Lu.”

“Is there something I can do to make you feel better?”

“How about you tell me about that friend of yours?”

 

That friend happened to be a second year student called Junmyeon. He was a fine specimen of a man, Kyungsoo had to admit. Even the ugly sweater vest that he was wearing didn’t undermine his charm. Kyungsoo might have been in love with Chanyeol, but he knew how to appreciate beauty, and Junmyeon was nothing short of attractive. It was a petty way to deal with his problems but it was Kyungsoo’s best option for a distraction. He wanted an out. He wanted to erase the blackboard on which he had written Chanyeol’s name all over and start again.

It wasn’t hard to like Junmyeon. He was sweet, charming, a complete gentleman and even a little dorky. It was the perfect mix. It was what Kyungsoo could have fallen for had he not met Chanyeol first.

He continued to date Junmyeon anyway. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It would take a little longer than a couple of months of dating for him to wash away the stain that Chanyeol had left on his heart.

He tried his best to balance it all. He didn’t want to lose one thing while trying to gain another. He hung out with Luhan. He dragged Chanyeol out for lunch whenever he got the chance. He attended band practices to hang out with the others. He even attended a few of their gigs. With all the distraction to help him Kyungsoo was doing quite well. He didn’t have much free time to focus on Chanyeol or his betrayal. Kyungsoo’s walls were holding strong; until Chanyeol decided to poke his finger through them.

 

“So, is he your boyfriend?” Chanyeol asked him, placing a bottle of beer in front of Kyungsoo after another one of their gigs.

Kyungsoo hesitated for a couple of seconds before nodding. He should have said yes with pride and affection. Then why was he feeling like he was only here with Junmyeon to make Chanyeol jealous? Did that even make sense?

“He seems like a nice guy,” Chanyeol offered, watching Junmyeon as he spoke to Yixing at the bar.

“Yes, he is.” Kyungsoo watched Junmyeon too, though it wasn’t entirely out of affection. He was more scared of looking Chanyeol in the eye and letting him see the truth swirling just under the surface.

“What about your girlfriend?” Kyungsoo blurted out, unable to keep mum about it anymore. It was eating him from the inside out. He saw Chanyeol stiffening out of the corner of his eye. “Yes, Chanyeol, I know about her. Till when were you going to keep her a secret?”

“I was going to tell you soon.”

“Oh yeah? How soon?” Kyungsoo could tell that Chanyeol was lying. He had no intention of introducing Kyungsoo to his girlfriend. He wondered why. Why would Chanyeol not want to introduce his girlfriend to his best friend?

“As soon as I was sure of how I felt about her.”

“Uh-huh.” Kyungsoo pretended to not be affected much by this statement and started to play with the condensation on his bottle. He was angry and jealous. He wouldn’t admit to the fact that he was jealous even to himself but he was jealous nevertheless and that just made him angrier.

“Do you want to have dinner together?”

Kyungsoo’s sour mood brightened at the idea of him and Chanyeol having dinner together. It would just be the two of them and Kyungsoo could just pretend like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

“I could introduce her to you and you could bring along Junmyeon so that I could get to know him better.” It took a few seconds for Kyungsoo to comprehend what Chanyeol was suggesting. He didn’t want just the two of them to have dinner. He wanted to have a double date. He wanted to Kyungsoo to sit there and smile and laugh at his jokes while she would be sitting right beside him in the spot that Kyungsoo could never have. If there was a metaphorical way for Kyungsoo to keep stabbing a knife into his heart the entire evening then there would be no better way than that.

“Yes, of course,” Kyungsoo agreed. He was probably a masochist and loved revelling in his own pain.

 

The dinner date took place two weeks later when they all could match up their schedule. Kyungsoo had to drag his leaden feet to make himself walk into that place and sit down opposite Chanyeol and his girlfriend. He tried to smile but he was sure it must have seemed like a grimace. No one said anything though and she smiled back at him radiantly so Kyungsoo must have smiled at her after all.

Kyungsoo wanted to hate her, he really did. But she was so sweet and so nice, going out of her way to make them seem comfortable that he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. She was smart, witty, had a great sense of humour which paired really well with Chanyeol’s and she was open minded about everything. She was perfect. In another world, where Kyungsoo was straight and Chanyeol was his best friend he would have told him to marry her. In this world, however much he approved of her, he couldn’t give Chanyeol his blessing. He wanted Chanyeol for himself even though he knew he was pining after something he’d never have. At this point Kyungsoo had quite forgotten about the fact that Junmyeon, his boyfriend, was sitting right beside him.

He watched Chanyeol interlace his fingers with hers and smile at her and he felt something snap inside him. His throat hurt as he tried to swallow his food which was suddenly a big lump and he started to choke. Junmyeon was immediately there for him, thumping his back, offering his a glass of water, asking if he was okay. Kyungsoo nodded weakly, finally managing to overcome the coughing fit and breathe easily.

Only when Junmyeon reached out to the corner of his eyes to wipe away the tears there did he realise that he was crying. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yes, I was just too breathless for a moment there. It felt like I was going to die.” That was the first time that night that he wasn't lying to himself and everyone else. He did feel like he wanted to die.

 

 

Kyungsoo called Jongdae and told him all about it, like he always did. Jongdae first listened to him and then gave him an earful. He told him to either tell Chanyeol how he felt or move on. It wasn’t healthy for him to continue where he was. Kyungsoo agreed that it was best to move on. He promised to try harder to get over Chanyeol and Jongdae was willing to support him with whatever decision he made. Three months into the relationship with Junmyeon, Kyungsoo finally decided to take it to the next level. He did like Junmyeon. Maybe not as much as he loved Chanyeol, but he had to live with it. He was now looking at Junmyeon for Junmyeon and not because he wanted to look away from Chanyeol. He liked the way he smiled and the way he laughed. He liked his lame jokes and the way he flushed when Kyungsoo or Luhan teased him about something. He was friends with Luhan and they always had a good time hanging out together; all three of them. Kyungsoo was beginning to look forward to their time together. So when their third month anniversary came rolling around Kyungsoo wanted surprise Junmyeon with something a little more than a make out session in his living room. His semester was over and he had a couple of months off before the beginning of his new term. The timing was perfect to take things to the next level.

Dinner was a nice little affair at an Italian restaurant that Junmyeon insisted on even though it was a little expensive. “It’s my treat. So just shut up and eat.” After dinner, Kyungsoo insisted on a few drinks at Junmyeon’s apartment. They finished two bottles of cheap wine while dancing around to slow music and the soft kissing soon turned hot and demanding.

Kyungsoo’s first time was somewhere between soft and rough. Junmeyon undressed him slowly while he pulled off Junmyeon’s clothes in haste. The kisses were harsh, the bites were soft. They left marks on each other in the form of hickeys and bruises. Junmyeon's fingers were gentle, Kyungsoo’s moans impatient. Junmyeon thrust in slowly and Kyungsoo begged him to hurry up. It was slow and deep, hard and fast. Both their backs arched with pleasure and Kyungsoo came harder than ever before.

After a perfect night like that most would have stayed in bed and woken up to snuggles and kisses; maybe gone for round two. They would have gotten breakfast together and smiled at each other as they basked in the sunlight. Kyungsoo would have done it too, if he hadn’t been ridden with guilt. He had slipped out of bed that night and slipped into his clothes as quietly as possible as he wandered in the streets like someone who wanted to get mugged. Maybe he wanted to. He deserved to be hurt for what he had done. He was a horrible person and getting robbed and beaten up would have been a good distraction from the guilt that was wracking up within him. He would deserve it too. He considered walking in the middle of the road, hoping that some drunk driver wouldn’t see him and unwittingly put him out of his misery. He hated himself and wanted to get away from his life in any way that he could.

When he couldn’t deal with it anymore he let himself slump down against a wall in some dark alley and called Jongdae.

It was four in the morning and Jongdae’s groggy “Hello,” was proof that he was fast asleep when Kyungsoo had selfishly woken him up.

“Dae,” Kyungsoo sobbed into the phone, unable to hold himself together anymore when he heard his friend’s voice.

“Soo?” Jongdae took a couple of seconds to understand what was happening but then he woke right up when he realised that his friend was crying. “Soo? What happened Soo? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do I have to call the police? Are you safe? Soo? Talk to me Soo.”

“Dae I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, shhh, shhh, it’s okay Soo. It’s alright. I’m right here. Tell me what happened.”

“I…..lost my….virginity Dae.” Kyungsoo choked out between sobs. His throat hurt and his eyes burned. Hot tears fell from his eyes onto his cheeks. “Last night. This night.”

“Why are you crying for that? Oh my god. Did you get raped? Did someone force themselves on you?” Jongdae sounded panicked and seemed like he was going to jump on the next plane to go check on Kyungsoo.

“No….No, I wanted it. I started it. It was with Junmyeon.”

“Then why are you crying Soo? Did he hurt you? Because I swear to god if he did anything to hurt you I’m going to fly there and-“

“No, he didn’t hurt me.” Kyungsoo raked in a large breath through his mouth. It was hard to talk with his nose clogged up. “He was very gentle. He tried very hard to make it good for me.”

“Do you not like him?”

“Yes….yes…” Kyungsoo nodded to himself in the dark, as if trying to appease himself, “I do. I do like him.”

“Then what’s wrong Soo?”

“I…I feel guilty. I fell very guilty.”

There was silence on the phone for a few seconds as Jongdae digested this information.

“Soo, when you were doing it, were you thinking of Chanyeol?”

“Yes.”

 

 

Jongdae had insisted upon Kyungsoo living with him while Kyungsoo was on break. He told Kyungsoo that he needed to get out of there to clear his head. Kyungsoo readily agreed and took a flight out of there the next day. He wanted to get out of there. He wanted to leave without telling anyone. He wanted to pull a disappearing act. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone and just the thought of people wondering where he was and worrying for him made him feel a little better, but that would have been too selfish of him. He owed Junmyeon and apology and he had to tell Luhan or he would worry. He couldn’t even bring himself to think about Chanyeol because every time he did he just felt sick with guilt.

Junmyeon was expecting him when he turned up at his door.

“You’re here to break up. Aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Junmyeon shook his head and told him that he saw it coming. He knew what he was getting into when he started going out with Kyungsoo. “You’ve only had eyes for him, but I had hoped that things would change.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“The heart wants what it wants. We can’t help it.”

Kyungsoo hated himself for doing what he did to Junmyeon when he saw how understanding he was about the whole thing. He didn’t deserve him. He didn’t deserve him at all.

 

Luhan wasn’t as understanding as Jongdae or Junmyeon. He got mad at him and yelled at him for throwing away someone like Junmyeon for someone he probably would never have.

“He is never going to love you back! Don’t you see? You’re just going to be stuck here pining and you’ll just end up fucking dying alone Soo!” Luhan was more hysterical about this than he was when he caught his boyfriend cheating on him.

“I can’t help it Lu.”

Luhan held him close to his face by his collar and growled at him. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can go live with Jongdae and forget about everything here for the next two months. Alright? If you even dare to come back here because of that tall fucking idiot piece of shit best friend of yours before your break is up, I will kick you in the balls. Okay?”

“O-Okay.” Kyungsoo was rarely intimidated by anything anymore but an angry Luhan was a scary Luhan. He did like his balls thank you very much.

 

Living with Jongdae was more fun than he had imagined. Jongdae had an apartment to himself and Kyungsoo had found himself a new hobby: cooking. Jongdae complained about Kyungsoo making him fatter and that his butt wasn’t perky anymore because of all the calories going right in there but Kyungsoo knew how much Jongdae had grown to love his cooking. On days when Jongdae didn’t have much studying to do they would go around the city, exploring nooks and corners and taking pictures there.

Two days after Kyungsoo had flown down to Jongdae’s place Chanyeol called him but he let it go to voicemail.

_“Hey Soo, you haven’t been back to the room in two days so I just wanted to check up on you. I’m guessing you are at Junmyeon’s so I don’t want to disturb but if you do find the time call me back. And maybe we can get breakfast or lunch together and catch up on last week. Have fun and don’t forget to use precaution.”_

Kyungsoo still hadn’t gotten over the sinking feeling that filled his belly whenever he thought of Chanyeol after the incident. He didn’t like it. They had been talking to each other (civilly, on Kyungsoo’s part) before Kyungsoo left but it mostly was Chanyeol blabbering about something that Kyungsoo wasn’t really paying attention to. Chanyeol had been awfully chatty about his girlfriend lately and Kyungsoo found it easier to tune out than get worked up over it. So having Chanyeol look for him, completely clueless about Kyungsoo’s whereabouts, made him feel a twisted and bittersweet kind of joy. He wanted Chanyeol to suffer a little too. Why should he be the only one who was always suffering?

He didn’t plan on calling Chanyeol back. He wanted to see how long it would take Chanyeol to figure out that Kyungsoo wasn’t there anymore.

The next day, there were a few texts waiting for him when he woke up.

From Chanyeol (6.47 a.m):

_Hey Soo, you haven’t returned to the room and haven’t returned my call. Are you okay?_

From Chanyeol (6.49 a.m):

_Are you still asleep? Are you at Junmyeon’s place?_

From Chanyeol (6.55 a.m)

_I guess you are still asleep. Call me back when you get this?_

Kyungsoo didn’t call him back. He didn’t want to talk to Chanyeol. He didn’t want to think about Chanyeol. He only felt sick when he thought of him. Anger, jealousy, dislike, resentment, regret, guilt; these were the emotions that he associated with when he thought of Chanyeol anymore. He didn’t want that. What he had with Chanyeol was precious. He couldn’t lose it to negativity.

Chanyeol, however, was making it very difficult for Kyungsoo to ignore him. He called and when his call went unanswered he left multiple voice messages on Kyungsoo’s phone.

_“Hey Soo. Look, I’m beginning to get worried. You never go this long without calling me back. Are you okay? Where are you? Listen, call me back as soon you get this.”_

2 hours later.

_“It’s been two hours since I left that message and you still haven’t call me back. Where are you Soo? Are you at Junmyeon’s? Are you with Luhan? Look, I have band practice in fifteen minutes and you better call me back before then.”_

17 minutes later.

_“Luhan told me that you weren’t with him. He was being weird with me when I asked about you. Did something happen between you two? Did you guys fight? I’m assuming that you are at Junmyeon’s place. If you don’t call me back by the time practice is over I’m going to drive over to come check on you.”_

 

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at the last message. Typical Luhan. He could have just told Chanyeol where Kyungsoo was but Luhan just had to pretend like he didn’t know to make Chanyeol suffer. Kyungsoo considered calling Chanyeol and telling him that he was with Jongdae but he still didn’t feel like talking to him.

The next call came three hours later. Chanyeol left another voice message and this time he seemed desperate.

_“I swung by Junmyeon’s place. He said that he hasn’t seen you in three days. Where are you Soo? He said that you told him that you were going out of town? Where did you go Soo? I called your parents. You aren’t back home. Where are you? Are you safe? Are you hurt? Are you ignoring me? If you don’t call me back soon I’m going to go to the cops. I’m worried Soo. Please call me back.”_

Jongdae was in the room when Kyungsoo was listening to the voice mail on speaker.

Jongdae’s forehead creased with worry when he heard how worked up Chanyeol was. “He seems very worried. I think you should call him back and let him know that you’re okay.”

He had barely suggested this to Kyungsoo when his own phone started ringing. It was Chanyeol.

“I’m going to tell him that you’re here Soo. It’s unfair to let him worry anymore.”

When Kyungsoo nodded his consent, Jongdae picked up the call and had a brief conversation with Chanyeol about Kyungsoo being there with him.

“He is here Chanyeol. He is in the shower. Yes, he is safe. No, I’m not lying.” He let out a sigh. “Why would I lie to you about this Chanyeol?” Another sigh. “I don’t know why he hasn’t replied to any of your calls or texts. I’ll ask him to call you back as soon as he gets out of the shower.” He listened to Chanyeol saying something for a few seconds and then ended the conversation with, “yes, I promise. I’ll make him call you back. Good night.”

He did make Kyungsoo call Chanyeol back that night. Kyungsoo probably would have done it anyway but it the process was speeded by Jongdae’s insistent nagging.

 

 

"I think that you should tell him Soo. Tell him how you feel." Jongdae was trying to convince Kyungsoo, yet again, to confess to Chanyeol.

"No, Dae. I can't. It'll just destroy what we have."

"What if it doesn't?" Jongdae implored.

"I don't want to jeopardise what we have on a ‘what if’. And you've known Chanyeol as long as I have. He is not interested in guys. When he’s with his girlfriend, the way he holds her hand and kisses her, even a blind man can tell that he's anything but gay. And besides, how can I tell him that I’m in love with him when he is clearly in love with someone else?"

"But Soo you'll regret it if you don't at least try."

"That's my decision to make. I'll be the one who'll have to live with it. So I'd like it if you let me make that decision on my own."

Jongdae pouted, clearly losing the fight in him. Normally he wouldn't go down that easily, but Kyungsoo was pleading him to let this go, even if he wasn't saying it out loud. Jongdae could tell by the crease in between his eyebrows and way his mouth was pressed in a firm line that Kyungsoo had made his choice. Even if wasn't happy about it, he was going to stick to his decision.

"Okay fine. I'll support your decision. Let it be known that I don't agree with it. But I'll support it anyway."

"Thank you."

"I'll always support you Soo, no matter what. Remember that."

The thing about Jongdae was that he was blunt, loud mouthed, always voiced his opinion and never backed down from a fight. But he was a pillar of support for those who needed him. He'd punch you in the face if you were being a jerk. Then he'd hand you an ice pack too and maybe even utter an apology.

Jongdae was all that Chanyeol wasn't and maybe, in another world where Kyungsoo wasn't so deeply in love with Chanyeol, he could have loved Jongdae as much as he did Chanyeol. However, in Kyungsoo’s current world, he and Jongdae would only ever remain as friends.

 

Kyungsoo had hoped to cut off all communication between himself and Chanyeol during the time that he was away at Jongdae’s place but they only ended up talking more. Chanyeol would call him almost every night except when the band had a gig and he was onstage, and he’d talk to him about anything and everything. It was like the old days again. Kyungsoo eventually told him about breaking it off with Junmyeon and stated his reason as ‘it wasn’t working out’, Chanyeol told him about his band getting an offer from a couple of big places in the surrounding cities. Kyungsoo told him about the tiny puppy that he and Jongdae rescued from an alley. Chanyeol told him about breaking it off with his girlfriend, also stating that ‘it wasn’t working out’. After that, Kyungsoo found himself laughing more during the phone calls. He found himself smiling at Chanyeols’ texts. Jongdae noticed his chipper mood and warned him to be careful but he brushed it away. He had found his answer. It was so simple that he wanted to laugh at himself for not seeing it. He was happy around Chanyeol. So all he had to do was hang out with Chanyeol. He would have to put up with Chanyeol having girlfriends but as long as he managed to keep Chanyeol’s attention he could deal with it. Couldn’t he?

Kyungsoo was grasping at straws that weren't there. He was making excuses that he shouldn’t have been making. He was compromising in manners he wouldn’t have thought of doing at the beginning of the break. He was being a fool. He knew it deep within his own heart but he blamed it on love. He really was a fool.

 

 

The band steadily grew in popularity over the next two years. While Kyungsoo worked hard on getting his degree, Chanyeol dropped out of college.

“I’m doing what I enjoy. A college degree won’t change anything,” Chanyeol argued when Kyungsoo protested against the idea.

Kyungsoo felt like it was Chanyeol’s way of rebelling against his parents. They weren’t happy with Chanyeol’s devil may care attitude when it came to choosing his college and major. They were unhappier when Chanyeol started playing in his band. They told him that music was something he should do for fun, not for life. They told him that he wasn’t in school anymore and that he should stop behaving like a child. That fuelled Chanyeol even more to rebel against them.

When Chanyeol finally decided to drop out of college, they decided to cut him off, but that didn’t deter him. The band was doing quite well and he didn’t have to depend on them anymore. Kyungsoo honestly felt a little guilty at the turn of events because he felt responsible for urging Chanyeol to give it a try in the first place.

Kyungsoo tried to bury that guilt under distraction that came in the form of helping Chanyeol write lyrics for their songs. There was something poetic in the way Kyungsoo phrased the things that Chanyeol wanted to say and that gave their songs an edge that few rock bands of their era had. The effect of how appealing their songs were to the public was evident when the band became a hit on Youtube. They were the talk of the town and they didn’t even have a single physical album released yet. This fact drew record label companies like vultures on prey, each one with an offer better than the other. The year ended with them signing a contract with a famous record label and the promise of a bright future ahead. They weren’t a small gig at a rundown bar anymore. They were Bandwagon; the band that would take over the world of rock.

Kyungsoo tried to keep up with Chanyeol’s band activities as much as he could without disrupting his final year in college. He wasn’t just an onlooker anymore. He was their lyricist. Chanyeol had made sure that he got signed on along with them. That didn’t mean that he travelled around with them as they performed in different cities. He was still a mere college student who attended classes and wrote long essays. The only difference was that he had his name printed on the back of the CD cover alongside Chanyeol’s. He had ‘Lyricist’ written beside his name and Chanyeol had ‘Songwriter’ beside his. He did get paid for his work and it was a nice feeling to see those bank numbers go up.

As finals drew close Kyungsoo focused harder on them. Luckily for him, Luhan was there to give him company. They studied together and that was the only reason why he saw him more often than Chanyeol. His conversations with Chanyeol were sparse greetings and concern over each other’s health. Chanyeol was too busy to date and Kyungsoo was secretly happy about that. He could focus all of his energy into acing his finals and getting that degree.

 

 

Shortly after finals Kyungsoo started working with Chanyeol on a new song. In between the first and the second verse an idea creeped into his head and stayed with him the entire night, keeping him awake and making him type furiously into his laptop.

It was the idea that turned into his first book. The song was written and perfected in three weeks but the book took two years to write. By the time Kyungsoo was done with his first draft of the book, the song had been released and was at the No.1 spot for twelve weeks and counting.

Kyungsoo would have liked to hang out with Chanyeol and Luhan at all those after parties after concerts. Kyungsoo would have done it too, if not for his book. For the first time he was occupied by thoughts other than Chanyeol and he wanted to see where they would lead him. He poured himself out in that book, cutting himself raw so that he could bleed himself into his characters. He had never been as honest about his emotions at any point of time in his life as he had been when he was writing that book. That proved to be the right thing to do when his book became a best seller within a few months of being released. It was a big thing for a novice writer like him. The praise flowed in freely and people couldn’t seem to be able to get enough of him.

Kyungsoo was soaring high. He had finally succeeded. He had made a name of his own. He couldn’t have been happier.

 

 

He should have known that his happiness would come with a price. During the time that he had buried himself in his book he had slowly lost track of Chanyeol; again. He met up with him often, had lunch, had dinner, helped him churn out two more hit songs, but he wasn’t there when the night clubs and parties started to dig their claws into him.

Chanyeol was another faceless victim among countless others who tried to find release in places that they shouldn’t have been looking in the first place.

"Here, why don't you try it Soo?" Chanyeol offered.

Kyungsoo looked down at the palm of his hand. In it nestled a white round pill. Kyungsoo knew what it was. He knew how it affected people too. Maybe that is why he didn't want to take it. Maybe that is why he was so averse to taking it. He didn't want to feel emotions that were not his. He didn't want to lie to himself.

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Your loss," Chanyeol shrugged before popping the pill into his mouth and washing it down with champagne. "More for me."

That was his second one in quick succession to the first. Kyungsoo regretted not taking the pill from him then. Maybe he could have prevented Chanyeol from taking the second one by just manning up for once and taking the damn pill. But no, he knew that he was doing a better job at being a friend by not taking it. He needed to be sober so that he could take them home safely.

Neither Chanyeol, nor Kris were in any position to drive. And from the looks of it, their manager seemed as far gone as they were. Leaving them in his hands was equivalent to signing off on their death warrants.

Kyungsoo swirled the orange juice in his glass, feeling the cold of the ice seep through the glass and into his fingers. He felt the wetness as the condensation dripped down the sides of the glass. And he counted the seconds it took for Chanyeol to start laughing like there's no tomorrow.

 

Maybe Kyungsoo really was a masochist. Or maybe he was just plain dumb. Why else would he be back at the same club, in the same seat, with another glass of orange juice in his hand?

"Soo, would you like to try it this time?" Chanyeol was like clockwork sometimes.

Kyungsoo was tempted for a second. He felt like shit. He hated seeing Chanyeol like this and it made his gut twist painfully when he realised how far gone Chanyeol was. He felt guilty for not paying enough attention to stop it when it started. He felt angry for not being able to do anything about it now. His heart ached for his friend and he wanted an out. Would that little pill be his answer?

"No, thanks Chanyeol."

Kyungsoo was like clockwork too.

 

While trying to drag an inebriated Kris and a giggly Chanyeol into the car Kyungsoo regretted his decision to stay sober. For once he wanted to let go. For once he wanted to be the one being taken care of. For once he wanted to be the irresponsible one and see for himself what joy Chanyeol could possibly be getting out of it.

 

Kyungsoo definitely was a masochist. There was no other explanation as to why he continued to hang out with Chanyeol when all it did was rip his heart into a million pieces.

He couldn't stay away though. He was a sunflower and Chanyeol was his sun. He turned to him even though he knew that if he let himself get any closer, he would be burned to crisp.

"You have a wish." Chanyeol reached for the eyelash stuck onto his cheek. His face was so impossibly close to Kyungsoo's that he could feel his breath fan across his lips and his chin. Kyungsoo was right about the part where he said that he'd burn to crisp. He was burning so hot right then he was about to bubble and burst. He felt the tell-tale heat in his ears, down his neck and over his cheeks.

"Here." Chanyeol opened his palm and carefully placed the eyelash in the middle. He had no sense of boundaries when he was in the special place where the pill took him. He touched Kyungsoo as he pleased; sometimes even more than what was appropriate between friends; all the while being fucking oblivious to what he was doing to Kyungsoo.

"Aren't you going to make a wish?" He was right in front of Kyungsoo's face again, eyes wide open, showing Kyungsoo his own reflection in their depths.

"You can take it if you want." Kyungsoo offered his palm out to Chanyeol. He didn't need that wish. What he wanted was right in front of him and he knew that he could never have it. There was no point in placing his hopes in futile wishes that would never come true. He wished he could squish his hopes as soon as possible so that he could move on.

"Are you sure you don't want it?" Chanyeol asked, reaching for the eyelash before he could even get an answer. He was already grinning at the prospects of having a chance at making a wish.

"Nah. You take it." Kyungsoo would give him everything he had if it could make him smile like that all the time.

"Okay. I'm making a wish." Chanyeol closed his eyes, mumbled something and then blew on his palm. He was like a kid sometimes. His child like innocence and excitement made Kyungsoo love him even more.

"What did you wish for?"

Chanyeol smiled so wide, Kyungsoo felt his heart skip a beat. "For us to be friends forever!"

Friends.

Only friends.

Kyungsoo’s heart plummeted. Chanyeol was the one who had made the wish. Then why did it seem like his wish was being answered? Was this the universe telling him that he had no hope? Was it was better to move on?

 

What was once a tiny inkling to be free turned into a full blown rebellion in his head. Kyungsoo was tired of trying to make Chanyeol stop, only to fail. He was tired of being the responsible one for the sake of his friend. He was tired of being cautious. He was tired of having to bottle everything up like he always had. He was so frustrated with life.

“To hell with it.” He told himself as he got dressed that night.

Walking into the VIP section turned more heads that he was used to. A couple of wolf whistles that were barely heard over the music and a couple of back thumps later, Kyungsoo knew that he was rocking his eyeliner look. Maybe even more than Baekhyun, if he were to believe Luhan’s words.

He wasn’t planning on being anyone’s designated driver that night so he threw back a couple of shots and waited for Chanyeol to pop out that magic pill of his like he usually did. Chanyeol usually popped one after they had had a couple of rounds, but Luhan beat him to it, dragging Kyungsoo to the large VIP restroom and offering it to him. They both sat down on the shiny Italian marbled floor, backs to the wall, beside a couple of potted plants. Kyungsoo could feel the music thrumming through the walls and sending vibrations into his back.

“Are you sure you want it?” Luhan asked, holding two tiny white pills in his open palm. “I’ve always seen you refusing to take ‘em when Chanyeol offers them to you.”

“I changed my mind.”

Luhan regarded him for a couple of seconds and Kyungsoo felt uncharacteristically vulnerable under the gaze. Then as if he was done inspecting Kyungsoo and had found what he was looking for, Luhan handed him one of them. Mirroring Luhan’s actions, Kyungsoo placed the pill on his tongue, leaned his head back against the wall, and waited for the magic to begin.

“Is this a good time to ask why you changed your mind?”

“I thought you already figured that out when you were staring into my eyes.” Kyungsoo was good at skirting questions. He had more than two decades of experience doing that. He wasn’t really in the mood for pouring out his feelings and hoped that Luhan would take the hint.

Luhan let out a bark of laughter, shoulders shaking as he enjoyed the joke that only he was privy to. “I was looking to see if you were already high, you know. Didn’t want you OD’ing on your first time.”

“How could you tell? That I wasn’t high already?”

“Your eyes.” Luhan didn’t explain further and Kyungsoo wondered if he was talking about the redness that he saw in Chanyeol’s eyes when he was high on pot.

“Do your eyes go red even with E?” Kyungsoo asked, never having gotten a good look of anyone’s eyes in the dark lighting of the club

“That wasn’t what I was looking for.” Luhan was being awfully short lipped for someone who jabbered nonstop.

“Then what were you looking for, Lu?” Kyungsoo turned to look at Luhan, maybe he could intimidate an answer out of his with his trademark glare.

Luhan wasn’t intimidated by Kyungsoo’s glare. (When was he ever?) Instead he seemed to be searching Kyungsoo’s face with something akin to concern.

“What was it Lu?”

“A perpetual sadness.”

 

Kyungsoo wasn’t sure when exactly the magic kicked in but he suddenly wasn’t feeling miserable anymore. He was glad that they were in the restroom when it hit because he suddenly had the strongest urge to pee and he barely made it to the cubicle, fumbling with his pants and shooting some on the floor and the seat before he could get his aim right. He heard a chuckle to his right and found Luhan right beside him, sharing the toilet bowl like it was no big deal.

Kyungsoo wanted to tell him to go get his own place to pee but then he was in such a good mood that he didn’t want to snap at Luhan. He was his friend after all. They were buddies, better than buddies. Best buddies. Luhan cared about him, and he wanted to care about Luhan too. He wanted to make him happy too.

“Come,” Luhan said, dragging him to the mirror when they had finished zipping up, “let me show you how sexy you look with that eyeliner.”

Kyungsoo must have been a genius with makeup and eyeliners. Good God! He looked like such a sexy beast. If he didn’t know that he was looking at himself, he would have fallen for himself. Wait. That was a very complex line of thought and Kyungsoo needed to process that but then he noticed how great Luhan looked. The pink hair really suited him and he looked like something that came out of a fairy tale.

Kyungsoo made sure to tell Luhan that. He made sure to tell Luhan a lot of things as they stood at talked to each other’s reflections in that heavenly restroom for much longer than intended. But who cared? Kyungsoo was giddy and happy for the first time in a very long while and he had Luhan to thank for that. He was overflowing with this newfound energy and he could have sworn that it felt like floating rather than walking.

Finding their way back was another level of stimulating when Kyungsoo felt the music pulsing through him. He could feel it in his bones. For the first time in his life he wanted to dance and he found himself moving to the beat as he walked. When the urge to dance became overwhelming he dragged Luhan, whose hand was interlaced with his, to the dance floor and just let himself get lost in the beat. He didn’t know he could dance so well and he had never expected Luhan’s body to feel so good against his.

A couple more trips to the bathroom and few shots later, Kyungsoo was still riding high. Every time he looked in the mirror he saw himself smiling, lips spread wide apart, eye crinkled at the corners.

He wondered, had he ever been this happy?

Luhan’s touch proved to be more addictive than Kyungsoo thought it would be and he found himself craving more and more as the night progressed. Soon they were kissing each other ferociously in the middle of the dance floor and when Luhan’s hand ventured down to feel how hard Kyungsoo was straining against his pants, he let out a moan against his mouth. Luhan immediately dragged Kyungsoo out of the club and into a cab. While barely managing to keep their clothes on during the cab ride and tripping several times on the stairs because they couldn’t stop kissing, they made into Luhan’s house.

Hands fumbling for keys. Other hands fumbling with belts. Dropping the keys.

“Oh fuck.”

Insistent lips on skin, tongue dragging wet stripes, teeth scratching into soft skin. Finally managing to open the door. Banging against things in the darkness. Stumbling into bed. Clothes pulled off roughly. Hand on cock. Hot mouth on cock.

“Oh fuck.”

Hard and rough. Hands digging into hips. Cock pushing deep inside.

“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.”

A hard release. Body arching in the air, tensing and shuddering.

Kyungsoo remembered only snippets of it the next morning.

 

 

Chanyeol hadn’t spoken to Kyungsoo in four days. That was surprising because the last time that Chanyeol went so long without talking to Kyungsoo he had freaked out and calmed down only after Jongdae had promised to get Kyungsoo to call him back. So when Kyungsoo didn’t get a call back from him even after leaving a voice message every day for three days after they had met at the cub, he started to get worried.

Kyungsoo hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Chanyeol that he was leaving the club that night. He was the one who usually dragged Chanyeol’s and Kris’s inebriated asses back home but that night he had forgotten about everything. When had woken up to the smell of bacon and eggs in the morning the first thing he did was panic. Had Chanyeol gotten home safe? Had he gotten into any trouble?

Luckily for him, Luhan had already called up their manager and asked about their whereabouts.

“They’re both at Chanyeol’s place,” Luhan told him, serving him a cup of coffee.

“Okay. I’ll swing by with some coffee and donuts for them. They need to get some caffeine and sugar in their system to keep that hangover at bay.”

“Ummm….” Luhan sipped on his coffee, eyes downcast as he tried to find the right way to say what he wanted to. “I’d not do that, if I were you.”

Kyungsoo knew that Luhan was trying to protect him from something, but Kyungsoo didn’t need protection. “Spit it out Lu.”

“They have a couple of girls over.”

What he actually meant was: you don’t need to see a girl walk out of Chanyeol’s room wearing his clothes, looking thoroughly fucked.

Kyungsoo blinked a couple of times, staring at his plate pf eggs and finding himself to not have the appetite for them anymore.

“I’m sorry, Soo.”

“It’s not your fault Lu. It’s mine.”

 

Three days later, he was still waiting for Chanyeol’s call and getting irritated as every minute passed. Was he still with that girl? Was he so busy fucking her that he couldn’t even check his call or his messages? Was he so-

His trail of thought was cut off by the ringing of his phone.

“Hey Soo, Chanyeol’s fine. Sorry I couldn’t answer your message earlier. We just finished practice.” Despite the events of that night and the next morning, Kyungsoo and Luhan were on good terms. No awkwardness had made its way between them and Kyungsoo liked that. “Do you want me to ask him to call you?”

“Nah, it’s okay. He’ll call me back whenever he wants to. Let it be.” Kyungsoo had pride. Even if he was the first one to call Chanyeol after that night, Kyungsoo still had pride. He wouldn’t call again. He wouldn’t beg for Chanyeol’s attention.

“Are you sure?” Luhan’s concern was audible in his voice. That Chinese drummer was too nice for his own good.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about me. Take some rest. Band practice must have been hard.”

“Yeah it was. My arms are dead.” He chuckled for a couple of seconds before telling Soo to call him if he needs anything and hanging up.

Kyungsoo wondered if he had saved a country in his past life in order to have friends as great as Jongdae and Luhan in his life.

Then he wondered whether he had betrayed said country for him to have fallen for Chanyeol so hard that he had have his heart torn out and stamped on so many times.

**

 

He ran into Chanyeol, a week later, at his favourite hangout. It was a club that had a separate level for VIPs and was frequented by many celebrities. Kyungsoo had gone there looking for Chanyeol.

“We need to talk,” he said, and without any preamble dragged Chanyeol by the hand to his car. Chanyeol had had a few drinks. It wasn’t the best time to start a conversation so Kyungsoo kept his mouth shut and continued driving around for a while. He didn’t have any destination in mind. He just kept driving. Chanyeol broke the silence an hour later.

“Soo, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For whatever I did.”

Kyungsoo scoffed. “You are apologising without even knowing what you are apologising for. What’s the point in that?”

“Well, I am sorry. So I guess it works.”

“That is not the way an apology works, Chanyeol.” Kyungsoo was mad at Chanyeol for behaving so callously. What happened to the Yeol that he knew? When did Kyungsoo start losing him?

“Then tell me what I did wrong!” Chanyeol screamed at him suddenly, making Kyungsoo swerve. Luckily it was late and there weren’t any cars on the road for Kyungsoo to crash into.

“You have been doing a lot of E, Chanyeol. That is wrong and needs to stop.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with that a couple of weeks back. Why the sudden mood change?”

“Because I saw what it does to you and I can’t bear to keep quiet about it anymore.” Chanyeol was losing himself to those tiny white pills. They were small in size but a formidable enemy. Kyungsoo had let it go on for too long. It was Kyungsoo’s fault that Chanyeol was so far gone. He should have paid more attention to Chanyeol. he should have put up a fight and made him stop the day he found out. he shouldn’t have let it go on for so long.

Chanyeol laughed without much humour. “You have no right to tell me what to do and what not to when you have been doing it yourself.”

“That was once, Yeol!” Kyungsoo lost his cool. Chanyeol was behaving like a true addict; unable to see the error in his ways. “It was just once. I’m not addicted to that shit like you. And I don’t do the things that you do when you’re high on that shit.”

Chanyeol barked out another humourless laugh. “At least I don’t go around being a slut and taking advantage of my friends when they are high.”

Kyungsoo felt like Chanyeol had slapped him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He couldn’t continue the conversation while driving so he pulled up to the side of the road and got out of the car. The closed space and proximity to Chanyeol was getting too suffocating for him. It seemed like the day he had told Chanyeol that he was gay was happening all over again. Replaying. Cutting open new wounds to accompany the scars of the old ones.

“I saw you, Soo. I saw you with Luhan,” Chanyeol said, in an accusatory tone.

Kyungsoo felt like he was slapped in the face again. He felt shame and embarrassment rise up in him but he couldn’t explain why. “So what?” he defended himself, “we both are consenting adults. We can have sex whenever we want.”

Chanyeol sputtered for a second, as if he had suddenly realised that Kyungsoo was right. Kyungsoo took this opportunity to lash at him. “At least we are consenting adults. I’ve seen the girls that you and Kris take back to your rooms. Half of them don’t even seem legal.”

“At least they are girls,” Chanyeol spat back at him, “Unlike you, I’m not a faggot.”

Kyungsoo felt like Chanyeol had kicked him in the balls this time. He went still for a couple of seconds, trying to convince himself that Chanyeol had not said what he had heard him say. But Chanyeol had said it. He had made Kyungsoo’s greatest fears come true and all the anger, all the frustration that had pent up all those years came flooding out.

Kyungsoo punched him so hard across his nose that he heard a couple of bones crunch. And from the pain that shot up his hand he was guessing that he had broken the bones in his hand too. But he didn’t stop there. He punched Chanyeol again and again. “Who you calling faggot, bitch?” he screamed, tears clouding his vision, making everything blurry.

After he got his fourth punch in Chanyeol got hold of his hands, pushing them down and pulling Kyungsoo into his chest. “I’m sorry. Soo. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t mean it. Soo.” He tried to hold Kyungsoo down in a fierce hug but Kyungsoo fought against it with all his might. How dare he? How dare he say that to Kyungsoo? Is that all what Kyungsoo was to him? A faggot? Did he not see anything else in him? Is that why he had been trying to get away from Kyungsoo all those times? Was he trying to push him away? Kyungsoo knew that his friendship with Chanyeol was too good to be true. He wasn’t anything to Chanyeol. He wasn’t a friend. He was a faggot. He was nothing but a faggot. He should have just told his mother about his sexuality. Maybe if she had put him in the nut house or sent him to a boarding school he wouldn’t have to hear something like this.

The anger and self-pity raged inside Kyungsoo and he continued to struggle against Chanyeol to get a few more punches in.

“Soo, please. I’ll let you hit me. Please just calm down first. Please. You’ll hurt yourself. Please Soo. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t.”

Kyungsoo fought against his hold for a couple more seconds, hitting against his chest before breaking down into sobs. “Why did you say that Chanyeol? Why? Do you hate me for being gay?”

“No, Soo. I’m so sorry. Oh god. I really am sorry, Soo. I didn’t mean it. Not one word. I didn’t know what came over me and why I said that but I’ll spend the rest of my life apologising to you for it.”

Chanyeol was crying too. Kyungsoo could feel the vibrations in his chest where Kyungsoo had buried his face. He could feel the anger leaving him as he cried into Chanyeol’s chest. They held onto each other for a long while, neither of them willing to let go. When Kyungsoo finally pulled himself away from Chanyeol he saw the blood all over his chin and panicked.

“It’s okay. It stopped bleeding. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. It must be broken. Oh shit, I’m so sorry Yeol.” Kyungsoo fussed over Chanyeol and drove him to a hospital to have him treated. Kyungsoo’s hand had swollen to twice its size by the time they got there and after a few tests they were both given some painkillers and asked to ice their injuries. Luckily neither of them had broken any bones.

 

That night as they both lay in bed Chanyeol opened to Kyungsoo for the first time about Ruyeol. He told him about how he had grown up seeing his parents treat Ruyeol as someone lesser than a part of their family. They treated him like he was a disease and that made him think poorly of Ruyeol too. He didn’t want to be that way but he didn’t know of any other way. His parents weren’t very communicative when it came to the Ruyeol being gay ‘issue’. He was scared that he would have to deal with their disapproval too, if he ever turned out like that. He had freaked out that night when Kyungsoo had first told him that he was gay because he was scared of what his parents would say when they found out. He was scared that they wouldn’t allow him to hang out with Kyungsoo anymore. But he had thought about it overnight and had decided that as long as his parents didn’t know they would be fine. He didn’t like the way they handled certain things, but they meant the world to him. Their opinion always mattered to him; still did. It held him back from being who he was and doing what he wanted to do. That's why he was trying so hard to break free. The band was his first step. He would take his next step soon. He didn’t hate Kyungsoo for being gay. He didn’t look at him differently either. Kyungsoo was Kyungsoo. It didn’t matter whom he liked. If he liked Luhan then so be it. He would support Kyungsoo; forever and always.

“I’m a little jealous that Luhan is taking my place, you know. We used to be so close. Things have changed so much in the past few years and I know I’m to blame. But I still love you, Soo. With all my heart.” He stopped talking then, as if contemplating his next sentence. He spoke again, a long while later, when Kyungsoo was on the edge falling asleep.

“I’m sorry for being this way. I’m just scared, Soo. I don’t want them to treat me like they treated Ruyeol.”

Kyungsoo wondered what Chnayeol's next step was and why he thought that he’d be treated like Ruyeol just for having a gay friend but that thought was lost as sleep engulfed him.

 

 

Kyungsoo had hope for the two of them. They could power through whatever life had to throw at them. Chanyeol would never love Kyungsoo the way he wanted him to but Kyungsoo would live with that; until he found something he could love more than Chanyeol. Kyungsoo didn’t quite remember when exactly he started being the clean-up crew for Chanyeol but he could roughly estimate it to be around the time Chanyeol was relapsing into his old habits. It hard taken a lot of work to get him cleaned up and off the drugs and Kyungsoo fought hard to keep him afloat this time. He was there to knock out every pill that Chanyeol got his hands on and he was there to ration out all the liquor that made its way into his hands. Kyungsoo stood by his side every step of the way even if he had to go  back home and cry into his pillow on days when it all became too much for him to deal with.

Chanyeol was blessed to have Kyungsoo watch out for him but Sehun wasn’t so lucky. Sehun found the painkillers that he was taking to be quite pleasant along with alcohol and that had turned into an addiction. The band and agency tried dealing with it quietly so that the media wouldn’t find out. In between all this mess Kyungsoo was offered the job of PR for the band (the previous guy quit with a huff) and his part time babysitting activities became a full time hair wrenching job. Except for Luhan, every one of them was always fucking something up big time and leaving Kyungsoo to deal with the mess before it became PR nightmare.

The worst of all of them were Chanyeol and Kris; especially put together. Whenever Kyungsoo wasn’t around, Chanyeol followed Kris like a lost puppy and imitated his actions; no matter how detrimental they were. It was frustrating for Kyungsoo to see Chanyeol behave like a blithering idiot and he ended up screaming at him on several occasions. When Kyungsoo kept him away from drugs he’d turn to alcohol. Kris would drink and Chanyeol would give him company till he himself got drunk enough to pass out. Once, he puked in the middle of the club. Then he fucking just stood there and stared until quite a few people pulled out their phones and manged to tweet about it. Kyungsoo lost his shit that day. He was too angry to even scream at Chanyeol.

When Kyungsoo kept away the alcohol Chanyeol would find a few girls to take home. If it was just one, Kyungsoo would probably have been able to deal with it more easily. But it was always two or more and Kris would always tag along like they were having a fucking orgy. Kyungsoo found himself seething every time it happened. It was wrong. It was gross. It made him want to hit Chanyeol. it made him want to slap him. It made him want to cry. It made Kyungsoo want to curl up in a ball and die. But he would make his way to their apartment in the morning, make sure that he wiped everything incriminating off the girls phones and then usher them out kindly.

When it wasn’t girls, it was late night illegal street racing. When Kyungsoo found out about that and put an end to it, it was alcohol again.

Every time Chanyeol messed up or was messed up he’d turn up on Kyungsoo’s doorstep seeking comfort and hoping that Kyungsoo could make it better again. Kyungsoo always made it better for him. He was always there with a bowl of hot soup, a warm bed and words of comfort. If Kyungsoo didn’t know better he’d have thought that Chanyeol was fighting with demons in his own head; demons that he couldn’t get rid of unless he did something self-destructive.

Kyungsoo didn’t fail Chanyeol though, he was there with warm inviting arms every fucking time.

 

Most people say that they'd like a mature relationship; not Kyungsoo. He wanted to be a needy person. He was tired of being the mature and responsible one. He wanted to turn up on Chanyeol's doorstep at ungodly hours demanding for attention. He wanted to whine just to make Chanyeol look at him.  He wanted to throw a fuss so that Chanyeol would soothe him.

He could only have that in his day dreams. Reality wasn’t very kind to him.

Pain was, sometimes, Kyungsoo's worst enemy and other times his best friend. He had given up on all vices. He didn’t drink anymore so there was no alcohol to soothe him with its hot glide into his belly and the warm buzz in his head. After his experiences with sex, he wasn’t very keen on that either. That only left him with pain; a dull ache forever taking residence in his chest. Sometimes the pain would flare up and make it hard to breathe. But he revelled in it; a masochistic trait that he had developed over the years.

 

 

One morning, a few tiring months later, Kyungsoo woke up to the biggest PR fucking nightmare that he could have imagined. What hit him hard was not the article or who had seen it, but what had happened; and who did it.

 

He was sent a link to an article by some non-decrepit online news company, but the page already had 10.000 views. 

The article read:

_The famous five member rock band Bandwagon has been garnering attention in the media not only for their sensational music but also for their deeds and misdeeds as of late. The netizens have a field day every time a member “screws up” and now to add to the long list of their favourite tales, which currently includes drug use, sexual exploits, drunken puke adventures and public nudity, we have a new tale which the netizens have so cheekily termed “The Fishy Tale”._

_This tale, just like the most popular stories could prove to be a mixture of truth, fiction, and exaggeration. But for now, we have an exclusive account of the incident straight from an individual who was in close proximity to the members of the Bandwagon as they “performed” their misdeeds in a not so private location._

_The core incident took place at beachfront villa in Miami on the night of the band’s last appearance at the International Music Festival. The group decided to have a small party for themselves, managers and a few select staff involved in making the show a success.  Sometime later, they were joined by a few ‘groupies’ which definitely uplifted the mood of the party. According to our witness, who happened to be in the vicinity:  “The party got louder as the night progressed. There were squeals and shrieks. But it seemed like they were having fun. It didn’t seem like anyone was being hurt. Not then.”_

_“I went to the beach to get some quiet because it was getting too loud near my villa. A few minutes later, two members of the band made their way to the beach with two girls. They were laughing and having fun so I just minded my own business. They must have not seen me in the dark and so they proceeded to do other things right there. I didn’t take notice at first but when the girl started screaming I had to look. They were thrusting a fish into the poor girl! Never in my 60 years have I seen something as horrendous as that!”_

_When asked if he could identify the members who were responsible, the witness could not give a solid answer. He claims that it was too dark for him to see them clearly._

_When the cops were approached regarding the same, they said that the only call they had gotten was for the noise disturbance. No complaint had been made by any individual of a nature as mentioned above._

_There was a photo uploaded by a groupie who is well known to hang around the band. It was deleted soon after, but not before a few screenshots of the same were captured._

_(Enclosed: a grainy picture taken in the dark, without a flash, showing a hand holding an object resembling a fish)_

_When she was approached regarding the same, she refused to comment._

_What exactly went down? Did they really do what the witness claims they did? Is this something that Bandwagon can afford to deal with when they are still recovering from the blow they received not six months ago when Oh Sehun’s prescribed narcotics addiction became public knowledge?_

_Bandwagon has maintained a steady stream of fans worldwide despite the constant controversies and scandals, but there might come a day when their fans will have had enough. How will they recover then?_

 

 

“Did you do it?”

Kyungsoo stood in front of Chanyeol with his arms crossed, staring him down. He felt numb. He wanted to be angry but the situation was so baffling that he just wanted to laugh like he had lost his mind.

“Yeah, it was me and Kris. We were just having some fun.”

“Just having some fun? Just having some fun?” Kyungsoo finally got his chance to laugh like he had gone mad. “You call fucking a girl in public as fun? What were you even thinking?” He bellowed. Kyungsoo had gone from being numb to being livid. He couldn’t deal with this callous attitude of Chanyeol anymore.

“I wasn’t thinking, okay?” Chanyeol pulled at his hair in frustration. “And it wasn’t a fish. It was a dildo shaped like a fish.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“No! It’s true. She got it online. There’s this website where you get this kinds stuff. I’ll show it to you. Just a second, let me look up.” Chanyeol reached for his phone and looked up the website to show Kyungsoo.

In a fit of rage Kyungsoo pulled the phone out of Chanyeol’s hands and threw it against the wall, making it shatter into pieces. “That is not the fucking point Chanyeol!” He was loud enough to have woken the entire floor.

Chanyeol looked shaken for a minute, but he recovered quickly. “Then what is the point? I didn’t force her to do it, okay? Neither did Kris. She asked for it. She was the one who suggested it. We just played along. It was just a little bit of fun. Why are you getting so worked up over it?”

“Chanyeol.” The way Kyungsoo said his name made Chanyeol’s face go pale with fear. Kyungsoo never said his name like that. Kyungsoo never said his name like he was _done_ saying his name.

“I’m tired Chanyeol. I’m tired of you messing up. I’m tired of you putting yourself in situations that you need _saving_ from. I’m tired of watching you hurt yourself and not being able to do anything about it. And I’m tired of letting you hurt me. I’ve been in love with you for half of my life but I have never been able to tell you just how much I love you. Instead I let you stomp all over me and my feelings.” Kyungsoo swallowed the lump in his throat and for once he didn’t try to stop the prickling hot tears from running down his cheeks in front of Chanyeol. He was hurt and he wanted Chanyeol to see it. He was tired of hiding how hurt he was.

“Soo,” Chanyeol stepped forward, hand half lifted, trying to reach out to him.

Kyungsoo flinched when that hand made contact with his arm. It wasn’t Chanyeol’s touch that made him flinch but what that touch could do to him. He knew that he’d break if he let that touch linger. He would crumble like a sand castle of fine sand in the wind. He would forgive Chanyeol for hurting him and the cycle would start again.

He had learnt from his mistakes by now. He knew that the time had come to pay more attention to self-preservation than his stupid fucking feelings. It was time to break it off; cut off the diseased limb.

“I’m tired of who you have become. I can’t deal with it anymore. It hurts Chanyeol. It fucking hurts.” At this point Kyungsoo voice cracked and he let out a sob that he couldn’t suppress. His chest felt tight, making it hard for him to breathe and he just wanted Chanyeol to close the distance between them and hold him but Chanyeol stood transfixed. When Kyungsoo felt like he had could breathe again he continued in a softer voice, “I have tried very hard. But this….what has happened is proof of my failure. I hope you change, I really do. But if you’re going to continue this way I really cannot stand by and watch.”

“Soo, I….” Chanyeol’s voice came out raspy, as if he had been screaming the entire night.

Kyungsoo waited for him to say something, anything.

_Stay._

_I’ll change._

_I love you._

None of that came. He was greeted with silence as Chanyeol stared at him with red rimmed eyes. For someone who had been as vocal as him all his life, this was the worst timing for him to be at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, Chanyeol.”

“Me too, Soo. Me too.”

Chanyeol didn’t stop him as he walked past him. Chanyeol didn’t come to his room to stop him from packing. He didn’t call out to him as he watched Kyungsoo get into a cab. He didn’t do anything. Kyungsoo was walking out of his life and he just let him go without a fight.

 

**

 

Running away from Chanyeol wasn't as effective as Kyungsoo had expected it to be. Yes, he was physically away from him. But use was it when his mind kept straying back? He thought of Chanyeol in the morning when he fried sausages for breakfast. He thought of him when chanced upon a store that sold guitars. He thought of him when he caught himself humming a tune only to realize it was one of Chanyeol's songs. He even dreamt of him when he was fast asleep, his subconscious unwilling to let go off that big eared oaf.

Most of the time Kyungsoo was strong. He could push those thoughts out of his mind by just focusing on the task at hand. However, there were those occasional afternoon breezes and full moon nights, when Kyungsoo's mind wandered back to Chanyeol and in those moments of weakness Kyungsoo gave in. He let himself remember all of it: the happy times, the sad, the joy, the laughter, the tears, and the pain. He smiled to himself as tears slipped out of his eyes, a weird little heaviness settling in his chest. And when he had enough, he clammed up again, gathering his strength to forge on in a world without Chanyeol by his side.

 

Being a novelist who worked by himself out of an apartment without much human interaction, save for the boy at the grocery store or the lady at the food stall, had its perks. He could cut himself off from the world. He could choose what to see and hear. His knowledge of the external world depended on what he allowed himself to know. He very strongly steered away from radio shows and music channels. He had customised his news feed on his apps to not show him any news regarding the music or entertainment industry. He watched movies by pay per view and the books he read didn’t have any reference to the one person he didn’t want to hear about. All his life he had run towards Chanyeol; now he ran away from Chanyeol.

After a year of struggling with himself, Kyungsoo gave up the fight. There was no point in denying that he was still in love with Chanyeol and those feelings weren’t going away any time soon. His heart still raced when he thought of him. He still smiled when he watched and re-watched videos of them on his laptop. He was glad that he had stubbornly refused to delete the videos, instead storing them in a secluded location on his laptop so that he wouldn’t chance upon then and would only see them when he specifically looked for them.

When he finally convinced himself, another 6 months later, that he wouldn’t break down and call Chanyeol, no matter what he saw, he allowed himself to google ‘Bandwagon.’

The news articles that greeted him were nothing short of surprising.

_‘Bandwagon has disbanded.’_

_‘Bandwagon has officially announced that they will be disbanding.’_

_‘Bandwagon has announced the dates for their last official show as a band.’_

_‘Bandwagon fans have expressed anger and frustration upon hearing news of disbandment.’_

_‘Bandwagon member Kris talks about what led them to disband.’_

Kyungsoo scrolled down the page and found several more articles, all along the same lines and all of them were dated to about a year ago. He just stared at the screen for several long moments before mustering the courage to move again and hit the search box for what he really wanted to search.

_‘Park Chanyeol.’_

The articles that came up almost made Kyungsoo forget about his promise to not touch his phone as he reached for it in panic. Almost. He regained his senses before he could do anything disastrous- like call Chanyeol.

_‘Park Chanyeol out of Rehab, music helped him recover,” he says.’_

_‘Park Chanyeol, lead singer and guitarist of Bandwagon, out of Rehab.’_

_‘Park Chanyeol checks himself into rehab after recovery from OD.’_

_‘Park Chanyeol found OD’ed in hotel room by fellow member Kris.’_

Kyungsoo clicked on the links one by one, starting with the oldest, and read through them.

_“Bandwagon’s lead singer and guitarist, Park Chanyeol was found OD’ed in his hotel room on the night of their last performance. He was found unconscious by fellow member Kris, who realised that something was wrong when he couldn’t be roused even after trying for several minutes. An ambulance was called and the singer cum composer was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was admitted into Intensive Care. After 48 hours under observation he gained consciousness and was declared to be out of the danger zone._

_On the very same day he had performed a new solo for his fans which he claimed to be was for a special someone. The song was R &B which was of very contrasting nature to the rock band’s usual line up. The lyrics of the song made it clear that he was asking for forgiveness from someone dear. Was it a lover perhaps? Fans are curios and eagerly awaiting an explanation from the lead singer. _

_But for now, he is in everyone’s prayers and they wish him a speedy recovery.”_

_“After barely surviving an overdose, lead singer and guitarist Park Chanyeol, checks himself into a rehab centre to help him deal with his addiction to Ecstasy. After fellow member, Oh Sehun went into rehab for a narcotic addiction, Park Chanyeol is the second member with a similar problem. That leads to the question, do all bands that hit it big experiment with drugs?....”_ the article went on to talk about various other celebrities that were addicted to various things. Kyungsoo had no interest in them whatsoever.

_“Park Chanyeol, lead singer, guitarist and composer of Bandwagon is finally out of rehab and he looks healthy. The singer was all smiles for fans who had come to cheer him on his release and even took a few photographs with them. According to the fans he seemed happy and content. He apologised to them for his behaviour and promised to be a better person in the future._

_He has uploaded a picture of a hard written letter of apology for all that he has done. He wrote that he was ashamed of himself and couldn’t bring himself to face anyone after the OD incident. He has come to see the error in his ways and he will try to make up for his mistakes every day for the rest of his life…….”_

There was a picture attached, showing a ruled page with Chanyeol’s messy handwriting.

Kyungsoo could feel that familiar lump in his throat and that burn in his eyes. But he refused to acknowledge either of them and clicked on the next article.

_“One month after coming out of rehab, Park Chanyeol makes his first public appearance at a press conference to announce his departure as lead singer and guitarist from Bandwagon. Here is a video of the press conference.”_

Underneath was a video link which Kyungsoo clicked on with little hesitation. Chanyeol popped up on the screen, standing tall and looking very apologetic as he spoke into the mike.

_“I have come to this decision after careful deliberation and lengthy discussion with the agency and the band members. After all that has conspired, this is probably the best course of action of me to take. Its not that I’m giving up on music, I’m not. Music is my life. But I do need to bring about a few changes in my lifestyle so that I don’t resort to my old ways again. I know I’m causing a great deal of distress among our fans by making this decision, but I need to change so that I don’t hurt anyone, including myself, anymore. I will be using this time to introspect myself so please be kind enough to support me. I’m sorry for hurting you. I really am.’_

The last two lines seemed like they were for Kyungsoo. It was as if Chanyeol was telling _him_ that he was sorry. Not his fans. But _him_.

Kyungsoo couldn’t ignore the lump in his throat anymore. He gave in to the pain and the heaviness in his chest and cried.

 

**

 

“Hey, Soo?” Jongdae’s voice cut through the fog of sleep still surrounding Kyungsoo. He tried to grunt in reply but his throat was still asleep.

“Soo, I really need you to wake up dude. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.” His voice got shriller with every wake up effectively pulling Kyungsoo out of dreamland.

“Who died?” Kyungsoo could be blamed for being grumpy. He was having such a nice dream and then stupid Jongdae-

“No one died yet, but someone will if you don’t check this out right now.” He pulled Kyungsoo to sit up and shoved his phone under his nose. There was a video clip waiting to be played and the caption read, “Chanyeol discloses all: music, fame, drugs and love!”

Whatever dregs of sleep were clinging to his consciousness were dispelled at the sight of that. “What’s this?” he asked, taking the phone out of Jongdae’s hand.

“Something that you absolutely need to watch right now. The interview was posted an hour ago. This clip is from the interview. It’s going fucking viral.”

“What does it say?”

“Why don’t you watch and find out for yourself?”

Kyungsoo hit ' _play_ ' with a shaking hand.

 

 

_Interviewer: So Chanyeol, can you tell us about the phase of your life when you OD’ed in your room? Was it a routine hit gone wrong or something more?_

_Chanyeol: (chuckles nervously) It was a routine hit gone wrong. But I can’t say that it was only that. That phase in my life was a dark one. I had lost something that was very important to me. And I didn’t know how to function without it. I was trying and failing. I was grasping at straws that weren’t there, trying to find peace where there wasn’t any, trying to find comfort where I wouldn’t find any. But I didn’t know any better then. I was an addict looking for an escape from my reality in my next fix._

_Interviewr: would you mind telling us about what you had lost?_

_Chanyeol: (blinks a few times and stares of into space before answering) It was a very special person. That person was my smile, my hope, my courage. My friend. My muse. My everything._

_Interviewer: Sounds like a very special someone. What happened?_

_Chanyeol: That person had to choose: stand by and watch me hurt myself or leave. I wonder what hurt more; watching me hurt myself or leaving. Either way, he had to suffer through both. It was unfair of me to make him go through that._

_Interviewer: He? Was he a friend? Lover?_

_Chanyeol: He was someone I was in love with for most of my life. But I was too much of a coward to admit it. Growing up in a very orthodox family, there were a few chains that were more binding than I was willing to admit. I tried to lie to myself about my own sexuality so that I could fit within the lines drawn for me as a male counterpart of society. And I ended up hurting him._

_Interviewer: Are you coming out? Are you finally admitting to your fans that you are gay?_

_Chanyeol: I’m admitting that I’m in love. You all can go ahead and label me what you may. I really don’t care. Not anymore. It was these labels that stopped me from admitting the truth when I should have. The fear of being judged, if I was anything but straight, made me lose what I had. Why should I have to try to fit into a box that you have drawn? If love knows no age, race, religion or nationality why should it know gender? I’ll admit, I was a coward. I let myself be cornered by society and its judgemental stare. I should have stood up for my love when it was right there, looking me in the eye. I was a coward. (sighs)_

_But I’ll be an even bigger fool if I give it up without a fight. I want a second chance and this time I’m going to do it right._

 

Kyungsoo had cried several times in his life. Every time he cried, he felt that it couldn’t hurt more than it did right then, but he was proven wrong every time. This time he didn’t realise that he was sobbing into his fist until Jongdae pulled him into a fierce hug. He felt like he was going to suffocate from how hard he was being crushed but he hugged Jongdae back harder because there was a new wound in his heart, right beside the old one and he needed the pressure to stop the bleeding.

Kyungsoo didn’t blame Jongdae for showing him that video. He would have seen it himself eventually. He was glad though, for Jongdae’s presence. It kept him grounded. Jongdae was always there; calm and reassuring. He was a crutch that Kyungsoo leaned on.

He didn’t call Chanyeol immediately or even a week later. In fact, he never called him. He might have been a coward for walking away instead of putting up a stronger fight, but he was no fool frantic to rekindle a flame that had all but left him in ashes.

However, he did watch the video again and again, slowly building his hope into a fragile ladder that he one day hoped to climb.

 

**

 

To Chanyeol’s credit, he took his time to build himself right up before calling Kyungsoo. He went back to music with a renewed passion and a promise to do it right by himself, and Kyungsoo, this time. It wasn’t easy dealing with the harsh criticism and the skeptic fans. He had failed them once. What proof did he have that he wouldn’t fail them again? He didn’t have an answer to that.

He persevered anyway. He had to make himself worthy of Kyungsoo. He had failed him once. He wasn’t going to do it again.

Park Chanyeol must have truly been a musical genius or maybe the sincerity of his emotions bled into his music and made them strike a chord inside every single person who listened to his songs. Either way, Chanyeol was a celebrated star again; the ghost of his pasts buried under the dust of his renowned success.

Then one day, he decided that it was time.

 

**

 

If there was one thing Kyungsoo wanted with Chanyeol, it was a new beginning. He wanted a chance to start over.

He had imagined several scenarios in his head, spending quite a few days day dreaming of how it would happen. Most of them were grandiose and involved grand confessions of undying love, mostly on Chanyeol's part, but Kyungsoo scrapped every idea as soon as he realised how foolish he was being.

He didn’t want a grand reunion. He wanted Chanyeol; long limbs, yoda ears, sleepy yawns, raspy ‘good mornings’, spazzy laughter, blinding smiles.

Kyungsoo was humming a song that Chanyeol had written for him all those years ago in the midst of tipsy laughter, playful jabs and sincere smiles when the ring of the red old fashioned telephone cut through the house. It was the first time it had rung in a long while. No one called him on the house phone anymore. He wondered who it could be.

 

 

“Hello? Kyungsoo?”

“Yes?”

“Remember Me?”

Yes. Kyungsoo remembered.

 

Those water fights in swimming pools, movie marathons in living rooms,

Those chilled beers at shady bars, quiet nights under the stars,

Those whispers in the dark, quiet moments of heart to heart,

Those smiles that made him happy and that laughter that made him giddy.

He remembered his love, once buried deep, but not forgotten.

He remembered it all.

 

“Yes,” Kyungsoo breathed into the phone, his heart racing. “Yes, I do, Yeol.”

A soft chuckle followed, making Kyungsoo’s insides flip.

“I’m sorry, Soo.”

“Me too, Yeol.” This was familiar territory. Even after all these years, this was familiar. This was home.

“If you're free this weekend, would you like to go out for dinner, maybe?”

“Yes, I'd love to.”

 

 

 

 

 

The end.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> P.S.: If you ever want to scream at me, you can always find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/owleyes_n_moles)


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